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COPYRIGHT DEPOSISi 



THE MANUAL ARTS 



BY 



CHARLES A. BENNETT, B. S. 

Professor of Manual Arts, Bradley Polytechnic Institute, 

Peoria, Illinois. Editor of Manual 

Training Magazine 




THE MANUAL ARTS PRESS 
PEORIA, ILLINOIS 






Copyright, 

CHARLES A. BENNETT, 

1917 



m 16 1917 



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PREFACE 

npHE greatest present problems affecting the 
-■■ manual arts In education, whether that educa- 
tion be vocational or cultural In Its aim, are cen- 
tered around the selection and organization of 
subject-matter and methods of teaching. Believ- 
ing this to be true, the author contributes the fol- 
lowing chapters to the discussion of these prob- 
lems, hoping that they may be of some service to 
his fellow workers. 

Several of the chapters have previously ap- 
peared as articles in magazines. When brought 
together, however, they have a significance which 
they did not possess as isolated articles appearing 
from time to time over a period of several years. 

Acknowledgment for permission to republish is 
due to Education, Educational Review, Vocational 
Education and Manual Training Magazine. 

Chas. a. Bennett. 

Peoria, Illinois, March 28, 1917. 



1^^ 1^7^^^ 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

Chapter I. Which of the Manual Arts 
Shall Be Taught in the Schools?. ... 11 

Manual efficiency of our forefathers. Manual 
work not taught in school, but the three R's taught 
for their practical value. The expansion of educa- 
tion to include science, engineering and history. 
Modern living and business conditions compared 
with those of our grandfathers. The greater use of 
machinery. Modern home conveniences and labor- 
saving devices require a more general knowledge of 
the principles and processes of industry. Apprecia- 
tion of industrial products and ability to purchase 
intelligently require industrial knowledge. The 
school must teach industry. The manual arts 
classified with reference to subject-matter. The 
graphic arts a language. Interdependence of the 
graphic arts and constructive arts. The mechanic 
arts. Increasing importance of the plastic arts. 
The textile arts. The peculiar importance of the 
book-making arts. All of the five groups of manual 
arts should be taught in the schools. 

Chapter II. The Place of the Manual 
Arts in Education 22 

The dual function of the manual arts in educa- 
tion. The manual arts as a means in attaining the 
end in education. Ways in which the manual arts 
contribute to social efficiency. The manual arts as 

5 



6 The Manual Arts 

a factor in the educative process. Importance of 
experience. The manual arts regarded as both sub- 
ject and method. The place of the manual arts in 
the primary grades; in the grammar grades; in the 
high school. Variety of materials, processes, ex- 
periences, and little technic in the primary grades. 
Good technic, the formation of correct habits, 
thoroness, problems of industrial value in grammar 
grades. Vocational purpose, emphasis on processes 
that are fundamental, industrial standards in the 
high school. 

Chapter III. The Development of Ap- 
preciation 3S 

Results of manual arts instruction; power to do, 
power to appreciate what others do. Conditions of 
appreciation: ability to produce, ability to express, 
experience. To know about a work of art is not 
sufficient basis for appreciation. Illustrations from 
music. Similar illustrations in water-color paint- 
ing, art smithing, hammered copper. Difference 
between appreciation of the thing represented and 
appreciation of the art employed in representation. 
Experience essential. Summary. The function of 
the public schools in reference to teaching appre- 
ciation. Public school curriculum should include 
fundamental processes of the five manual arts. 

Chapter IV. Vocational Training: To 
What Extent Justifiable in Public 
Schools 46 

Educational expenditure in business enterprises. 
The amount of such expenditure that is justifiable 



Table of Contents 

Application of the same principle to public educa- 
tion. Purpose of public schools fundamentally 
vocational. Economic value of education not suffi- 
ciently appreciated in America. Emphasis on voca- 
tional elements in education need not mean sacrifice 
of cultural elements. The best cultural education 
may come thru a training that is fundamentally 
vocational. The nation is justified in training 
specialists. Origin of the term "Made in Ger- 
many." Motive in the development of vocational 
education in Germany. 



Chapter V. The Selection and Organ- 
ization OF Subject-Matter in the 
Manual Arts 54 

No need of sharp line of demarkation between 
vocational training and cultural training. Voca- 
tional training in the manual arts is good manual 
training plus the factory system. Desirable to 
select subject-matter having present industrial 
value. Select subject-matter from typical common 
industries rather than from exceptional or un- 
common ones. Statistics concerning industries. 
Selection of subject-matter based on analysis of 
industries. Factories recognize the importance of 
analysis. Different kinds of analysis. Importance 
' of selecting typical modern industries for analysis. 
Group analysis. Each group to contain some vital 
element or elements. Groups arranged in sequen- 
tial order. 



8 The Manual Arts 

Chapter VI. The Group Method of Or- 
ganizing Subject-Matter in the Man- 
ual Arts with Reference to Teach- 
ing 68 

Original purpose of the group method to har- 
monize class and individual instruction. Difficul- 
ties in teaching that called forth the group method. 
Illustrations of these difficulties. A course of in- 
struction under the group method. Class instruc- 
tion. Individual instruction. The group method 
and class management. No two pupils work the 
same combination of problems. A parallel found 
in the teaching of history. Illustration of a course. 
A group described. Allows for varied methods of 
teaching in the same class. Graph of accomplish- 
ment. Individual differences provided for. Indiv- 
idual development combined with class progress. 



Chapter VII. The Use of the Factory 
System in Teaching the Manual Arts 85 

Turning out a salable product is not sufficient 
guarantee that a school shop is giving supeiror in- 
struction; a factory does that and makes no pretense 
at being an educational institution. Large factories 
are teaching their apprentices in non-productive 
shops organized on an educational basis. Producing 
woodworking factory shop at Bradley Institute. Its 
equipment. Disposing of the products of the fac- 
tory. Cost system introduced Shop order sheet, 
cost sheet, time slip. Course of instruction. Groups 
A, B, C, D, E, and F. Conclusions. Value of a 
producing factory demonstrated for advanced in- 



Table of Contents 9 

struction; non-producing factory better for early 
stages of shop instruction. Opinions of manufac- 
turers. 

Chapter VIII. Three Typical Methods 
OF Teaching the Manual Arts 103 

Three typical methods described: (i) imitative, 
(2) discovery, (3) inventive. Utilization of the in- 
stinct to imitate. Value of the imitative method in 
teaching technic, in guiding habit formation. The 
control of imitation. Claims for the discovery 
method. Emphasizes individual differences. As a 
matter of fact pupils will imitate each other if not 
allowed to imitate the teacher. Discovery method 
uneconomical. Effect of the inventive method 
compared with that of the imitative. Student's re- 
lation to his work in the inventive method. Sum- 
mary. All three methods should be used in teaching 
the manual arts in public schools. 

Questions 113 



CHAPTER I. 

Which of the Manual Arts shall be 
Taught in the Schools? 

/^UR forefathers came to this country civil- 
^^^ ized and equipped for the tasks before 
them. They came with habits of worship and 
reverence, with ideals of liberty and with knowl- 
edge of legal procedure. They came also with 
manual efficiency; some were farmers; others 
were carpenters, masons, millers, wheelwrights 
and blacksmiths; the women could spin and 
weave, sew and cook, clean and manage a house- 
hold. When schools were established, these 
were to train men to become lawyers, statesmen 
and preachers of the gospel. Schools for the 
manual industries were not needed because 
everybody worked with his hands, and the the- 
ories, recipes and traditions of the crafts were 
handed down from father to son, or from master 
to apprentice. The common schools taught all 
children to read and write because such instruc- 
tion was considered a necessary safeguard to 
the democratic form of government which was 
adopted. Ability to cipher, also, was considered 
desirable for all, and in the villages and towns 
it soon became essential because it had to do 
with money and the sale of merchandise. 



12 The Manual Arts 

Decades came and went and left pioneers still 
subduing the forest lands and exterminating the 
Indians. Generations passed; cities began to 
spring up and grow; the prairie lands of the 
Central States began to yield an abundant har- 
vest and the mines to give up their rich stores. 
Manual labor, joined with natural resources, 
yielded great wealth. But during all this time 
the school was not called upon to train in manual 
industry. The school had, however, greatly in- 
creased its facilities for training for citizenship 
and the professions; academies, colleges and pro- 
fessional schools had been established and were 
rapidly growing into great universities; and the 
common schools had been multiplied to keep pace 
with the expanding frontier. 

Then came the demand for men trained In 
science and engineering to build railroads and 
bridges, canals and aqueducts, engines, ships and 
machinery of all kinds. This practical demand led 
to the establishment of schools of science and engi- 
neering, and soon the science studies found their 
way into the curriculum of the common schools. 
The growth and struggles of the nation demanded 
a more broadly educated citizenship, and historical 
studies and the study of social problems also found 
a place in school work. 

While all this remarkable development has been 
going on In the national life and in the school, the 



Which of the Manual Arts Shall Be Taught? 13 

mode of living has changed as rapidly. The simple 
life of the earlier days has given way to the many 
complexities of our present life. Now we all want 
modern houses; we want them individual in design, 
finished in hard woods, heated by automatically 
regulated furnaces, supplied with an abundance 
of water, gas, electricity, and telephones connect- 
ing us with our neighbors and friends. We want 
artistic draperies, rugs and wall coverings, good 
furniture, fine pictures, statuary and musical instru- 
ments. If we compare our present homes with 
the homes of our grandfathers when we were chil- 
dren, we realize what a rapid and remarkable 
change has taken place. About the same change 
has taken place in reference to our food and cloth- 
ing. Instead of contenting ourselves with what can 
be raised in our own garden or our own town, we 
get food from the most distant parts of the earth, 
and by rapid transportation we have largely over- 
come the limitations of season. We no longer 
spin and weave in our own homes ; knitting by hand 
is almost a lost art, and most of the sewing is done 
"on the machine." When we turn from the home 
to business the same is true. The farmer who is 
not equipped with motive power and machinery, 
can hardly expect to compete in the market. The 
ox team has given way to the traction engine, the 
cradle to the self-binding reaper, and so on 
thru the list. This is equally true in manufac- 
turing and nearly every other line of business. 



14 The Manual Arts 

Things are being done at greater speed and in a 
manner that requires a more elaborate equipment. 
All this development has immensely increased 
the output demanded of the producing and dis- 
tributing industries. This demand in turn has 
increased the need for skilled workmen. Another 
factor that has acted with this need is the internal 
development in the industries themselves, which 
has come in part from the necessity of a more eco- 
nomical use of materials, but principally from the 
discoveries of science and their application to 
industry. If one tries to enumerate the changes in 
the metal industries alone that have followed the 
application of electricity in the telegraph, the tele- 
phone, the electric light, and electric motors he 
soon sees how endless is the undertaking. A very 
important result of this development in the indus- 
tries is the need of men with a wider knowledge 
of the materials and processes of industry and the 
principles upon which the processes and the use 
of the materials rest. This knowledge is not being 
handed down from father to son to any great 
extent, nor from master to apprentice, partly 
because the factory system does not easily lend 
itself to education, and partly because the knowl- 
edge needed is so new that even the masters them- 
selves find it difficult to keep up with the develop- 
ment. But this need for a wider knowledge of the 
principles and processes of industry is not confined 
to the workers in these producing industries. Every 



Which of the Manual Arts Shall Be Taught? 15 

man who would intelligently use the modern con- 
veniences of his own home, or the labor-saving 
devices and conveniences of business life, must 
know something of the materials and principles of 
industry; and if he is to have any adequate appre- 
ciation of the product — if he is to judge the quality 
of the thing he purchases or uses, he must know 
something of the process that produced it. In 
fact, industrial development has been so rapid 
and so varied in our country — it has affected every 
man's life to such an extent that if he is to retain 
sufficient mastery of his environment to make it 
serve his needs, he is forced to acquire consider- 
able practical knowledge of the materials, princi- 
ples and processes of industry. As we have 
already seen, this knowledge is not being handed 
down from parent to child in any adequate way, 
and so we look to the school to furnish it. And 
if the school is to furnish it, the school must be 
equipped with the tools of industry. 

Having accepted the responsibility for giving 
instruction in the industries, the school finds itself 
facing a long series of problems of selection, 
organization and administration. Most of these 
problems are still unsolved, tho many of them 
are being solved. 

Perhaps the problem of first importance relates 
to the selection of subject-matter. Which of the 
many manual arts shall be taught? Are some 
more fundamental than others? How can the 



i6 The Manual Arts 

manual arts be classified? What shall be the 
basis of our choice between them? These ques- 
tions are consciously or unconsciously being 
answered for individual schools, but too often 
without a sufficiently broad view of the needs and 
the possibilities. To find adequate answers one 
must survey the whole field of the manual arts 
as applied to industry; he must search out a basis 
for classification; then he must select fundamental 
processes in each class. Perhaps no better classi- 
fication has been suggested than the following: 

(a) the graphic arts. 

(b) the mechanic arts. 

(c) the plastic arts. 
{d) the textile arts. 

(e) the book-making arts. 

These five should be found in every course in the 
manual arts which extends thru the elementary 
school period, and if cooking is more art than 
science, the culinary arts should form a sixth class. 
The graphic arts were the first to be given a 
place in school work. These include all forms of 
drawing, both freehand and mechanical. The 
industries they represent are numerous — architec- 
tural and machine drafting, all forms of engineer- 
ing drawing, designing for a variety of industries, 
and illustrating for newspapers, magazines and 
books. The increasing importance of these arts 
is apparent to everyone who gives the matter 



Which of the Manual Arts Shall Be Taught? 17 

mought, and the more one gives It thought, the 
more firmly convinced does he become that there 
is great need of revising many of our school 
courses in drawing so that they will be in harmony 
with the needs of the industries. Courses may be 
made far more practical than they are at the pres- 
ent time without being less cultural, and the more 
they harmonize with the best industrial practice 
in these arts, the more highly will they be valued 
by the community. Too often the drawing work 
has been a blind struggle for self-expression, when 
good representation would have been far better. 
Drawing is a language, and as such, a considerable 
knowledge of its symbols and forms must precede 
effective expression, especially in grades above 
the primary school. The fact that the graphic 
arts do serve as a language, transmitting thought 
concerning form and relative size, direction and 
curvature, tone and color, gives them a unique and 
important place in their relation to the other man- 
ual arts. For this reason, then, the graphic arts 
are fundamental, and rightly deserve first place In 
any course of instruction in the manual arts. 

But just as power to write good English is 
of comparatively little value without thoughts to 
express, so the graphic arts are robbed of half 
their value if not accompanied by some of the 
other manual arts. Mechanical drawing, for 
example, becomes too theoretical and often almost 
useless when not accompanied by woodworking 



1 8 The Manual Arts 

and metalworking. Design, as we have been told 
so many times during the past few years, and are 
now just coming to believe, can be taught at Its 
best only when associated with work In the mate- 
rial into which the design is to be wrought. The 
use of the object suggests the form ; this Is modified 
by the materials; both form and materials, to- 
gether with the toals, limit the design, and often 
suggest it. If necessary, other examples could be 
given to show the dependence of the graphic arts 
upon the constructive arts. Without the graphic 
arts the constructive arts have no means of com- 
munication, no language; they are dumb. With- 
out the constructive arts the graphic arts are lack- 
ing in content, in thought. In application. The 
Interdependence Is thus apparent. 

Of these constructive arts the mechanic arts 
have been most prominent in the minds of advo- 
cates of manual training. This is chiefly due to 
the fact that they deal especially with the two 
great constructive materials of our civilization — 
wood and metal. Not only the building and ma- 
chine industries, but most manufacturing and 
engineering enterprises — ships, railways, private 
vehicles, home furnishings and conveniences de- 
pend upon the skillful use of these two materials. 
The mechanic arts therefore appropriately head 
the list of constructive arts. 

In marked contrast with the mechanic arts, yet 
in many ways associated with them, are the plastic 



Which of the Manual Arts Shall Be Taught? 19 

arts. These include brick and tile making, con- 
crete construction, pottery, terra cotta and model- 
ing. These arts at present find their best school 
counterpart in clay-work. Year by year the indus- 
tries involving the plastic arts are becoming more 
and more important. The exploitation of our 
forests is making recourse to the clay bank a 
necessity in building. Demonstration of the possi- 
bilities of reinforced concrete construction is plac- 
ing sand and cement in competition with steel. As 
the cities grow in size calling for more large 
buildings, the demand for ornamental tiles and 
terra cotta increases, and under similar circum- 
stances there is an increased demand upon the 
plastic arts for the decoration of the interiors of 
buildings. From the standpoint of industry, then, 
the plastic arts constitute an important division of 
the manual arts, and from the school standpoint 
clay-work is one of the very best means of train- 
ing; it is form study work par excellence. 

The fourth group of arts is the textile arts. 
This includes spinning, weaving, braiding, dyeing, 
basketry, knitting, sewing, embroidery, garment 
making — a large number of processes fundamental 
in our civilization. No further discussion of these 
is necessary; their vital importance is apparent. 

The fifth group consists of the book-making arts 
— printing, engraving, lettering, leather tooling, 
bookbinding and construction work with paper, 
cardboard and paste. While these arts are not 



20 The Manual Arts 

as fundamental to man's existence as the fourth 
group, which provides his clothing, and the second 
and third, which provide his shelter, they do pro- 
vide his chief means of storing up thought and 
transmitting it from one man to another and from 
generation to generation. This group of arts, 
then, is essential to progress if not to existence, 
and to that extent it is fundamental. From the 
school standpoint this group is one of especial 
value because it relates so readily to other school 
work; many of its processes are simple, requiring 
but little equipment and only such materials as are 
readily obtainable. 

To these five may be added the culinary arts; 
yet for some reasons the preparation of foods is 
more fittingly classified among the sciences than 
among the arts. Undoubtedly it is both a science 
and an art, and whether it is more one than the 
other is of no importance here. The essential 
point is that food-work is fundamental to civiliza- 
tion, and should have a place among the other 
manual arts in the school. 

No school system should be satisfied with 
teaching only one or two of the manual arts; some 
practical experience in all of them is necessary to 
prepare for the enjoyment of modern home and 
industrial conditions, and essential to an adequate 
appreciation of the arts of modern life. 

The public school has a noble record and should 
not be diverted from its traditional purpose, which 



Which of the Manual Arts Shall Be Taught? 21 

manifestly is to round out preparation for living, 
not in the remote or the near past, but to-day, in 
modern surroundings. Thomas Davidson has 
said that education "has grown with the growth 
of practical intelligence, and has been in all cases 
a preparation for life under existing institutions." 
It is the schoolman's duty to analyze present con- 
ditions, determining what constitutes a prepara- 
tion for adequate living, and then shape the work 
of his school accordingly. 



CHAPTER II. 

The Place of the Manual Arts in 
Education. 

AS the field of school education broadens, its 
aims and methods become more varied and 
complex, and often confused. This is certainly 
the case today in that departmicnt of education 
which deals with the manual arts. The motives 
for the introduction of these arts have come to 
be so varied that to think clearly concerning this 
phase of school work is very difficult. This is 
perhaps fundamentally due to changing social 
ideals and consequent demands, but it is partly 
due to a failure of educators to recognize that the 
manual arts function in school education both in 
attaining the end of education and in facilitating 
the educative process. The teacher needs to keep 
in mind this dual capacity which the manual arts 
possess as a means in education. 

This duality of function is not peculiar to the 
manual arts. It is equally true of the natural 
sciences, and many have been the pedagogical 
battles fought out in that field in times past. One 
can readily recall the time when the science teach- 
ers were dwelling in two camps, one emphasizing 
the facts of science and the other the method. It 

22 



The Place of Manual Arts in Education 23 

would seem, therefore, that the arts might have 
profited by the experience of the sciences, but in 
much of the discussion during the past fifteen 
years, this surely has not been the case and is not 
today. One man looks upon the manual arts as 
a body of subject-matter to be taught as he would 
teach the facts of history; another insists that the 
manual arts must be regarded as a fundamental 
method of education, and claims to care little or 
nothing for the subject-matter involved in this 
method. The place, therefore, of the manual arts 
in the one case is quite different from that in the 
other. One leads chiefly to a mastery of the ma- 
terials and the manual processes of industry, the 
other to a new motive and means of expression in 
teaching other subjects. The man whose vision 
penetrates deep enough sees that the big truth 
concerning the manual arts includes both of these, 
and that instead of being in conflict, they are really 
in harmony. When this viewpoint has been gained. 
a most fundamental step has been taken toward 
finding the place of the manual arts in education. 

In discussing this larger view, four propositions 
may be considered: 

/. In so far as the end in education can be 
attained more readily through the employment of 
the manual arts, these arts should have a place in 
education. 

The end of education changes from age to age 
as civilization advances, and should be in harmony 



24 The Manual Arts 

with the Ideals and Institutions of the time. At 
the present time no end seems so much In harmony 
with needs and the highest Ideals as that of social 
efficiency In the Individual. In Its broad Interpre- 
tation, this term seems to summarize all other 
worthy alms, and points toward a goal not yet 
reached. Taking for granted, then, that the ulti- 
mate end of education Is social efficiency in the 
individual, the manual arts should have a place In 
school education corresponding to their effective- 
ness in helping men to become socially efficient. 

As social efficiency in the individual means first 
of all that each individual must be directly or indi- 
rectly a productive member of society, the arts 
must answer the demand of productivity. To be 
productive a man must at least "pull his own 
weight." He may do so either "directly as a 
productive agent, or indirectly by guiding, inspir- 
ing, or educating others to productive effort."^ 

As productivity in the great majority of Individ- 
uals Is the direct result of the Intelligent and skill- 
ful use of the hands, it follows that training in the 
manual arts, which more than any other division 
of school work develops such use of the hands, 
should be given a place sufficiently large to allow 
such training to be effective. Until sufficient time 
is allowed in the school program for manual arts, 
no one should expect large results from them. 
With a time allowance which will require as much 

^Bagley: The Educative Process. 



The Place of Manual Arts in Education 25 

of the pupil's effort as Is given to the other funda- 
mental studies, both Inside and outside the school, 
the manual arts will yield results which count 
large on the side of productivity. 

The manual arts contribute to social efficiency 
In several ways. They not only give vocational 
power, contributing largely to ability to earn a 
livelihood, but they Impart first-hand knowledge of 
the material accessories of modern life. Every 
man's effectiveness and happiness is dependent in 
some measure — sometimes In large measure — 
upon the ease and Intelligence with which he util- 
izes the modern conveniences In his own home or 
the material devices which make for economy and 
efficiency In business life. Moreover, the manual 
arts develop appreciation of beauty In Its relation 
to material form, color, tone, and texture, which 
is an element not only in esthetic enjoyment but In 
general efficiency and productivity. And, further, 
the manual arts provide a means in addition to 
written language, of transmitting from generation 
to generation and age to age, some of the choicest 
thoughts and feelings of man. Since the manual 
arts contribute so largely to social efficiency, and 
social efficiency is the end sought in education, the 
manual arts deserve a place in school work. 

2. In so far as the educative process can be 
accelerated and made more thoro thru the em- 
ployment of the manual arts, these arts should 
have a place in education. 



26 The Manual Arts 

The educative process is one of gaining ex- 
perience either directly, or Indirectly, thru other 
persons or their records in books or works. In 
this process of gaining experience, the value and 
effectiveness of indirect experience is dependent 
to a very large extent upon related direct experi- 
ence. There Is no substitute for such of these 
direct experiences as are fundamental, and the 
greater the number, the greater will be ''the mass 
of apperceiving ideas," tho after some funda- 
mental direct experiences have been gained, it is 
often economy to make use of indirect experiences. 
To gain the fundamental direct experience at the 
time when needed and in the right relation to asso- 
ciated indirect experience is most desirable. To 
bring this about is largely the work of the school, 
and therefore the school must have the necessary 
means at hand. 

Applied to the manual arts, this indicates that 
if these arts are to be effectively taught in the 
school, or if real appreciation of these arts is to 
be developed, first-hand experience must be gained 
In them In the school. It Is folly to try to teach 
a girl to appreciate needlework without giving her 
needle and thread and cloth and teaching her to 
sew, but after she has learned the fundamentals 
of sewing this knowledge will serve as a basis for 
the appreciation of results in needlework quite 
beyond her skill to produce, and wholly beyond 
her ability to appreciate before she had learned 



The Place of Manual Arts in Education 27 

the fundamentals of needlecraft. Moreover, many 
of the other subjects of the school curriculum — 
certainly of the elementary school — are naturally 
so interwoven In the manual arts and find practi- 
cal application so widely thru them, that direct 
experience In these arts provides a motive, a need, 
recognizable by the child, which is at the basis 
of many of our modern methods of teaching. A 
child wants to make a picture book. In making it 
he must measure and he must divide; he should 
also increase his practical vocabulary; In addition 
to these he may learn something of the early his- 
tory of books and of the source of paper and 
strawboard and cloth and paste ; he may then col- 
lect pictures and learn something of the lives of 
the men who painted them and the thoughts and 
feelings they desired to express thru them. Thus 
the manual arts serve as a method or means of 
teaching other subjects, and so contribute an ele- 
ment of value in the educative process. 

5. If the place of the manual arts in education 
depends upon their service In attaining the end of 
education and their value In the educative process, 
then they should be regarded as both subject and 
method. 

The history of handwork In education reveals 
two traceable tendencies concerning the place of 
the manual arts which have been more or less In 
conflict. One has been to regard these arts as 
a subject and the other as a method. 



28 The Manual Arts 

Dr. Pabst of Lelpslc has pointed out ^ that 
Heuslnger believed that the Impulse to activity 
should be used to lead man to avenues of knowl- 
edge which otherwise would remain closed to him. 
Froebel emphasized and developed this idea and 
placed handwork at the very center of the curricu- 
lum. Herbart, on the contrary, and many of his 
followers, use handwork as a means of teaching 
the other school subjects, and make handwork 
dependent upon the other branches of Instruction 
for its problems. Salomon in Sweden, Goetze in 
Germany, and most of the early leaders of manual 
training in England and in this country regarded 
their work as a subject co-ordinate with other sub- 
jects in the curriculum, while Colonel Parker and 
several child-study specialists in this country and 
in England have given marked emphasis to hand- 
work as a method in education; and much of 
the literature of the subject of a few years ago 
was written from the viewpoint of these men. 
During the past few years, with the advent of the 
movement toward industrial education, there has 
been a growing tendency again to give emphasis 
to the manual arts because of their content value, 
but, let it be hoped, without forgetting their 
process value. 

Today it seems clear that the manual arts in 
education should function both as subject and 

^Handwork Instruction for Boys, translated by Bertha Reed 
CofFman. 



The Place of Manual Arts in Education 29 

method. The advocate of either view by Itself 
seems not to present the whole truth. To contend 
that In order to have educative value, work in the 
manual arts must smack of a trade, or to look 
upon these arts in the school as merely producing 
certain specified material forms In clay or wood 
or metal, without reference to how they are pro- 
duced; or again, to think of the manual arts as 
merely a body of facts to be learned about materi- 
als, tools, forms, colors, and processes, is to fail 
to get an adequate Idea of the place of the manual 
arts in education. On the other hand, to insist, 
as some have done, that the function of the manual 
arts is to provide a concrete method of teaching 
other school subjects, or to supply a motive or 
need which will admit of a better method of teach- 
ing the other subjects, is to reveal an equally inade- 
quate conception of the function of the manual 
arts In education. Only thru the unification 
of these two views of the manual arts, regarding 
them as possessing at once the characteristics of 
both subject and method, can we hope to get the 
true and adequate conception which will be a safe 
guide in organizing manual arts work In the 
school. 

4, Considering the place of the manual arts in 
education as dependent upon the aim of education 
and the needs of the educative process, and regard- 
ing these arts as both subject and method, the place 
which they should occupy in the work of any sec- 



30 The Manual Arts 

tlon of the school, as primary, grammar, or high, 
can be determined by discovering the specific end 
sought in that section and the special needs of the 
educative process with reference to the manual 
arts in the particular stage of child development 
represented by the section. 

In considering the primary grades it may be 
assumed that it Is clear to every one that so far 
as the manual arts are concerned, the end of social 
efficiency In the Individual Is better served by lay- 
ing a broad foundation of first-hand experience 
than by taking him thru any narrow course of 
more specific technical training. It has been proven 
that if sufficient time be given to basketry for sev- 
eral years, American primary school children can 
make most remarkable baskets, some of them 
almost rivaling the work of the aborigines them- 
selves in fineness and technlc. But it Is hardly 
the function of the primary school to train expert 
basket makers, and it would be difficult, on any 
other ground, to justify such a narrow course of 
training In handwork. It would be far better to 
give the young child experience in a large variety 
of materials and processes, not so much to teach 
technlc as to stimulate and guide his natural con- 
structive activity, and to utilize the great oppor- 
tunity that presents itself at this age for expres- 
sion, more or less free, thru concrete material. 
In fact, in these grades the manual arts should be 
regarded as a method far more than a subject. 



The Place of Manual Arts in Education 31 

Let them serve every other subject or embryo- 
subject in every natural and reasonable way. In- 
stead of limiting the child in this work to paper 
and raffia, or clay and cloth, or wood and wire, 
give him all of these and more. Cultivate in him 
the habit of observing how things are made, of 
expressing ideas in concrete form, of constructing 
well enough to serve a purpose which he under- 
stands, and of doing it all so neatly and in such 
good form and color that it is pleasing to his 
gradually more discriminating eye. Stimulate in 
him that real joy and wonder at the possibilities 
of construction with his own hands, which the 
little kindergarten boy felt when in great enthusi- 
asm he said, "Isn't it fine to see how one thing 
busts into another without breaking." The aim, 
then, in the primary grades should be to utilize 
the manual arts in giving the child an opportunity 
to gain a wide range of direct and useful experi- 
ence with constructive materials and processes, 
without very much reference to technic. 

In the early grammar grades the emphasis 
begins to shift toward the manual arts as a sub- 
ject, and in the upper grammar grades, technic is 
as essential as was freedom from technic in the 
lower primary grades. Physically and mentally 
the child is now ready to form very definite habits 
in the use of his hands. In fact, he will form them 
whether we wish him to or not, and it is therefore 
essential that we see that the right ones instead 



32 The Manual Arts 

of the wrong ones are formed. If he uses a tool, 
he should be taught to use it in the right way. 
Otherwise he may have to go thru the expen- 
sive process of inhibiting a bad habit and acquiring 
a good one in its place. When such bad habits 
are multiplied they become discouraging and 
well-nigh impossible to unlearn; hence the justice 
of the criticism of some work for pupils of this 
age that has passed under the name of manual 
training, but fails to possess the first fundamentals 
of real manual training. 

This emphasis on technic does not lessen the 
interest of the child in his work; on the contrary, 
it deepens it and renders it more permanent. 
Moreover, emphasis on technic does not mean 
returning to the rigid systems of models imported 
many years ago from Europe; neither does it 
mean adopting the factory system in all our gram- 
mar schools. It does mean thoroness where too 
often there is lack of it, and it does mean teaching 
a technical process in harmony with recognized 
technical standards. 

All this does not interfere with the manual arts 
in these grades being of value as a method in 
teaching other subjects, but it does mean that the 
work during this period contributes to social effi- 
ciency, the end of education, more distinctly and 
definitely than it does to the educative process. A 
lack of clearness of conception concerning this 
point has caused much confusion among teachers. 



The Place of Manual Arts in Education 3;^ 

The present demand for Industrial education, if 
rightly Interpreted and conservatively heeded, may 
bring us to our pedagogical senses In this matter. 
If all our art and manual training work of the 
upper grammar grades were more thoroly done, 
more technical In character, more in harmony with 
the Industries of adults — were more definitely a 
serious subject — and If it were given sufficient time 
In the school program to become really effective, 
we would hear less complaint about the defects of 
the school system. 

Sufficient time Is essential. What could an 
eighth grade teacher do In teaching United States 
history if her pupils spent no time outside of the 
recitation period In the preparation of their lesson 
and were to recite but once a week — thirty-six 
hours a year? What practical results could she 
expect? And yet that Is what some schools are 
doing In the manual arts and are looking for prac- 
tical results. It is Impossible. A few are giving 
from three to five hours a week and are beginning 
to get results. This amount should be further 
increased. 

In the high school the manual arts have become 
differentiated Into special subjects, as dressmaking, 
wood-turning, forging, machine drawing, etc. As 
a method In education they are still valuable, but 
It Is the educational end they serve far more than 
any value In the educative process that gives them 
their place In the curriculum. The end sought may 



34 The Manual Arts 

be vocational or general, but in either case the 
arts taught should be so correct In technic, should 
place such emphasis on processes that are funda- 
mental, should be so In harmony with the cor- 
responding Industry that they will have distinct 
vocational value as far as they go. 

Possibly they may go far enough In the high 
school or even In the grammar school to give to 
selected groups of students all that any school can 
give toward a trade or occupation, but whether 
the manual arts aim for Immediate vocational 
results or not, the technical standard should be the 
same. 

The place of the manual arts In school educa- 
tion, then, is that of both subject and method. As 
method. It Is most effective in the primary grades. 
As a subject, it grows more and more important 
as the grades advance, and becomes a highly spe- 
cialized subject or group of subjects in the high 
school, A full recognition of these two aspects 
of the manual arts, and what naturally follows 
as a result, should be a help to every teacher and 
school superintendent in organizing his course of 
instruction. 



CHAPTER III. 
The Development of Appreciation. 

^T^WO of the direct results of instruction in the 
manual arts are, first, power to do, and, sec- 
ond, ability to appreciate what is done by others. 
Both of these results must be embodied in the aim 
of the teacher who would wisely guide his pupils 
in work in the manual arts. Emphasis is rightly 
placed on the first, but the second deserves more 
thought than it usually receives. 

Froebel tells us that "man only understands 
thoroly that which he is able to produce." Accept- 
ing this statement as fact, we see that it is only 
thru mastery of processes, tools and materials, 
color, form and values, laws of construction and 
harmony, that we can completely understand any 
masterpiece of art or handicraft. And we know 
from experience that such mastery is exceedingly 
difficult to acquire. 

William M. Hunt in his "Talks on Art" ^ has 
given emphasis to the same fact when he says, "I 
flatter myself that I know and feel more than 1 
express on canvas; but I know that it is not so." 
Here is the point of view of complete mastery of 
materials and processes. If one becomes a master 
'^First Series, page 5. 

35 



26 The Manual Arts 

of brush and pigment, he can express his thought 
and feeling thru painting, and It is only thru such 
power of expression that one comes to know the 
thought and feeling expressed by other painters — 
to fully appreciate a great work In painting. But 
here again we who would appreciate art and handi- 
craft find that it takes a lifetime to gain the 
mastery of even the painter's art; and when we 
think of sculpture and metalwork, cabinet-making, 
textiles, jewelry, the building of a cathedral, a 
great bridge or machine, we realize how impossi- 
ble it is to fully appreciate work in all these arts 
and crafts. With our human limitations, the span 
of a single life is not long enough to include so 
much, yet we desire the power to appreciate the 
good in the arts and to help others to do the satne. 
So we are led to try another and easier course. 
We throw aside the philosophy of Froebel and 
seek to store our minds with facts about the arts, 
in the hope that by this means we may reach our 
goal of appreciation. We search the latest books 
and magazines. We read what Mr. A. says of 
the opinion expressed by Mr. B. concerning the 
work of Mr. C. We find that Mr. D. does not 
agree with either Mr. A. or Mr. B. on several 
important points, and we take little satisfaction in 
knowing their combined opinions. When we are 
honest with ourselves we admit that we do not 
appreciate the real thing they are writing about. 
Like the young clerk in the draperies department 



The Development of Appreciation 37 

of a downtown store, we can talk "arts and crafts 
style" or we can discuss the report of the latest ex- 
hibition, and quote good authorities too, but we 
are conscious of the fact that this is not apprecia- 
tion. We know that appreciation involves feeling, 
and this newspaper reading has begotten no art 
feeling In us. We would not only know about art, 
but we would feel — we would respond to the Influ- 
ence of the art; we would have the artist's emo- 
tions transmitted to us, and this we find does not 
come about thru the medium of words merely. We 
must see and touch and do ; we must get our knowl- 
edge first-hand; we must learn thru experience. In 
learning about the art we have avoided the thing 
itself. As Dr. Munsterberg points out \ we have 
taken the scientist's attitude Instead of the artist's 
— "The scientist explains, where the artist 
appreciates." 

This brings us to our problem: If we cannot 
learn to appreciate the arts by reading books and 
magazines, and If life Is not long enough to allow 
us to secure the mastery of all the arts we would 
appreciate, what are we to do? Is there not a 
median course open to us? For our purposes, can 
we not combine the scientist's explanation with 
the artist's appreciation? Would not -such a 
course be In harmony with the aim of the public 
school? If so. Is It possible, and what does It In- 
volve ? 

"^The Principles of Art Education, page 28. 



38 The Manual Arts 

Perhaps we may get a suggestive illustration 
from music: We would appreciate the oratorio. 
We read of the origin and early form of the 
oratorio and Its Identity with the opera. We read 
the life of George Frederick Handel, a description 
of his "Messiah," and learn of the effect It pro- 
duced when It was first given in the city of Dublin. 
We read of Its presentation In London shortly 
after, when the audience was so electrified by the 
''Hallelujah Chorus" that the King and all present 
rose Involuntarily and remained standing till Its 
close. We are Interested In this account, but the 
reading does not enable us to appreciate the ora- 
torio. Next we go to the Auditorium and hear 
the "Messiah" presented by noted soloists and the 
great chorus and orchestra. We are more than 
interested now, tho many parts of the compo- 
sition find no response In us — we have not been 
educated In music. The grandeur of other parts, 
however, does affect us, but we do not yet appre- 
ciate the oratorio. Then we learn to sing, and 
join the great chorus. Under the inspiring leader- 
ship of a Thomas or Damrosch, we sing the parts 
over and over; we rehearse with the soloists and 
orchestra ; and on the night of the concert we pour 
out our souls In music till we are lifted above our- 
selves and things of earth and are touched by the 
same emotion that Inspired the composer. We 
may not think we see "all heaven before us and 
the great God Himself" as did Handel when he 



The Development of Appreciation 39 

wrote the "Hallelujah," but we have in some meas- 
ure come to appreciate the "Messiah," and we 
have established a basis for the appreciation of 
all other oratorios. 

Another illustration from music: A boy in the 
fifth grade in the public school read in his school 
reader an account of the writing of Mozart's 
"Requiem." He read how the unknown visitor 
came and gave Mozart the commission, how he 
disappeared so mysteriously that Mozart believed 
the stranger had been sent from another world; he 
interpreted the coming as announcing his own ap- 
proaching end, and so applied himself with In- 
creased ardor to the task of writing the 
"Requiem." Later the boy learned to play a 
selection from the "Requiem" on the piano and 
recalled what he had read two years before. He 
hunted up his old reader and re-read the story; 
then going to the piano he sat down and played 
the selection again. It was evident that his emo- 
tions were affected by the music as they had not 
been before. The "Requiem" had a new meaning 
to him; he had reached a stage of appreciation 
which was not evident before he re-read the story, 
and certainly not before he learned to play the 
selection from the "Requiem." He does not yet 
fully appreciate the "Requiem," but he has the 
foundation for a growing appreciation. 

Turning now to the manual arts we may find 
similar illustrations. A young man sees a water- 



40 The Manual Arts 

color painting and likes it, but he does not appre- 
ciate it until he has struggled with muddy washes 
and hard edges and false values and learned to 
produce something of that purity and delicacy of 
color and those atmospheric effects which belong 
particularly to paintings in water-color. He may 
have read much about water-color painting and 
water-color paintings and water-color painters, but 
he gets only part value in return for his reading 
until he has studied the art itself. After that, the 
reading is of great value. 

The same is true of the art of smithing. Not 
until one has drawn out the hot Iron with the 
hammer and anvil and discovered the difficulties 
In making a graceful bend or a neat weld can he 
appreciate medieval wrought-iron work. Until 
then the hinges on the doors of Kenilworth Church 
or Notre Dame Cathedral are so many black 
scrolls and sprays. They might just as well have 
been made of painted stucco as nobly wrought 
metal. After he has himself worked in Iron, every 
fact In the history of the craft, and every master- 
piece has a new interest to him. The fact that so 
few of us appreciate wrought iron is why we ac- 
cept substitutes from those who would deceive us. 

A short time ago while in an art store a clerk 
wished me to admire some pieces of copper work 
— "A very fine new line, just In," she said, and 
then spoke of the Individual pieces In most en- 
thusiastic terms, telling me that they were all 



The Development of Appreciation 41 

beaten up by hand. The moment I saw them I 
knew they were not hand work. Having ham- 
mered copper myself, I knew that the pieces before 
me were not even good imitations of hand work, 
and so I pointed out her mistake. She still insisted 
and carried the case to the proprietor for vindica- 
tion. Much to her chagrin he admitted the truth. 
The clerk herself did not intend to misrepresent 
facts; she was merely repeating what had been 
told her. She had no appreciation of the wares 
she was trying to sell. She could talk glibly about 
a dozen kinds of handicraft work, but she had no 
real appreciation of any of them. Every day she 
was misleading an ignorant public that came to the 
best art store in town to buy genuine art products. 
In this connection it is well to remember that 
one may be attracted by the form of an object or 
its use without appreciating it as an art product; 
or, in painting, one may be interested in the subject 
of the composition and may value the picture 
without appreciating the painting as a work of art. 
I used to know a man who painted pictures of farm 
houses and cornfields and sold them to the owners 
of the farm houses. The farmers bought his pic- 
tures not because they appreciated the painting, 
but because they were interested in the thing he 
represented in his pictures. If they had appre- 
ciated painting they would not have bought his 
pictures. Appreciation of an art, then, demands 
a high standard in works that are representative 



42 The Manual Arts 

of that art. To raise the level of appreciation in 
a community is to raise the standard of art prod- 
ucts that can be sold in that community. 

What we have observed to be true in reference 
to the arts of painting and metalwork is equally 
true In reference to any of the mechanical arts. 
For a generation our engineering colleges have 
recognized that to read about pattern-making, or 
moulding or machine construction, Is not sufficient 
for the engineer, even tho as an engineer he 
may never have to do the handwork. In order to 
gain reasonable knowledge of processes and an 
appreciation of quality In construction, it Is essen- 
tial that the student in training have actual shop 
experience In all the fundamental crafts he is likely 
to deal with as an engineer. In this way only can 
a feeling for good workmanship — an educated 
sense of fitness — be Imparted In the short period 
of the school preparation of an engineer. But 
here, too, mere practice In the craft Is not suffi- 
cient. Along with the practice must come a study 
of the theory of construction and the economics 
of Its application to Industries, also a study of the 
materials employed, the source of supply, methods 
of refining, etc. The student gets the theory and 
the practice — the science and the art — together. 
Each helps the other. 

If these illustrations have been pertinent to the 
problem under discussion we may infer, ( 1 ) that 
some definite knowledge of the technic of an art 



The Development of Appreciation 43 

is fundamental to any real appreciation of that art, 

(2) that appreciation involves feeling which can 
be gained only thru experience in the art itself, 

(3) that after such experience, appreciation may 
be developed by reading about processes, methods, 
motives, relationships, about the masterpieces, and 
especially by studying the works themselves. 

With the foregoing discussion in mind we may 
now turn our thoughts for a moment to the public 
schools. The aim of the public schools, in refer- 
ence to the manual arts, is not fundamentally to 
turn out a few great artists and master craftsmen. 
It is rather to educate many pupils to a reasonably 
high degree of industrial efficiency, and to give all 
pupils the power of discrimination and apprecia- 
tion. With our present ideas of training for citi- 
zenship in a democracy, we usually discourage 
much specialization in the elementary school, and 
aim to produce a high general average of manual 
efficiency. We prefer considerable familiarity 
with several crafts to expertness in one. Likewise 
in the matter of appreciation we prefer to have it 
cover a wide range of handicrafts rather than be 
narrowed down to one or two. 

Accepting this point of view, for the present, at 
least, it follows from what has been said that in 
order to develop the kind of appreciation we want 
in American citizens, it becomes necessary for the 
public schools to give instruction in a variety of 
arts and crafts rather than to confine its efforts 



44 The Manual Arts 

to one or two. Without forgetting the dangers 
of a mere "smattering" of a subject, we recognize 
the importance of an intimate acquaintance with a 
variety of materials and processes as the basis for 
a broad appreciation. Moreover, such acquaint- 
ance is the foundation for effective work in voca- 
tional guidance. A course thru the grades con- 
sisting merely of paper and cardboard work, still- 
life drawing, and a course of benchwork in wood 
is decidedly inferior to a course which includes 
fundamental processes in (a) the graphic arts — 
drawing and picture making, (b) the mechanic 
arts — woodworking and metalworking, (c) the 
plastic arts — modeling and pottery, (d) the textile 
arts — weaving, braiding, sewing, and garment 
making, and (e) the bookmaking arts — paper and 
cardboard work, lettering, bookbinding and 
leather tooling. Not one of these five subdivi- 
sions of the manual arts can be omitted from the 
course without correspondingly limiting the possi- 
bilities for the development of appreciation. 

But it is not sufficient that the child do the work 
merely, even in all these varied arts and indus- 
tries; he must be led to see beyond the work of his 
own hands; he must learn something of the rela- 
tionship of each art to the great out-of-school 
world into which he will soon be thrown, and to 
the history of industrial effort. Information con- 
cerning the origin and development of any art — 
the social conditions that called it forth and nour- 



The Development of Appreciation 45 

ished it — will give the pupil's own work new sig- 
nificance. The masterpieces, too, and the experi- 
ences of the men who created them, should be an 
inspiration to him. Biography, history, economics, 
science and literature may all contribute elements 
to his developing appreciation. 

The development of appreciation in the manual 
arts as a factor in public school effort does not 
mean less handwork and more information, but it 
does mean more information of a significant char- 
acter connected with the handwork, from what- 
ever source it may come. It means a new point of 
view for many teachers of the manual arts, and 
especially it means enrichment of the course of 
study and rational correlation. 



CHAPTER IV. 

Vocational Training — ^To What Extent 
Justifiable in Public Schools? 

TN business the amount of money that may profit- 
■^ ably be spent in advertising depends upon the 
financial returns from such advertising. Whether 
a business house can afford to spend one thousand 
or one hundred thousand dollars in educating the 
public up to its standard of quality and taste de- 
pends upon the returns it can get in sales which are 
the result of such educational expenditure. There 
is no limit to the justifiable expenditure so long as 
the returns come in in sufiicient ratio to the capital 
invested in this way. Likewise the question of how 
much the business house can afford to spend in the 
special education of salesmen depends upon the 
returns in sales in proportion to the outlay for 
education and wages. 

This same principle holds true in public educa- 
tion. Any expenditure is justifiable so long as the 
returns are sufficient in kind, quality, and amount. 
In this case, however, the returns are not in terms 
of dollars for the business corporation, or salary 
for the individual, but in terms of benefits realiz- 
able by all the people of the city, the state, the 
nation — by the public. The late General Francis 

46 



Vocational Training in Public Schools 47 

A. Walker once said that the demand for public 
schools "has been purely socialistic in character, 
springing out of a conviction that the state would 
be stronger, and the individual members of the 
state would be richer and happier and better if 
power and discretion in this matter of education 
of children were taken away from the family and 
lodged with the government/' It is of the great- 
est concern to the public how the children of the 
nation are educated, and the nation or the state is 
justified in adopting any reasonable measures that 
will produce efficient citizens. 

^ The more one studies the history of the public 
schools the more it becomes clear to him that the 
great purpose of such schools is fundamentally 
vocational. We are aware of the fact that it is 
customary to speak of the aim of the public schools 
as being, first, cultural, and incidentally vocational. 
From the standpoint of the state, however, the 
former may be regarded as incidental to the latter. 
General education — at least, that part of it that is 
given during the first six years, which we call 
elementary education is, so far as the state is con- 
cerned, but the beginning of an education, the 
whole of which is the making of efficient social 
units. And an efficient unit of society must have 
a vocation, and to be most efficient that unit must 
be trained in some way — either in public schools or 
at private expense or thru vocational experience or 
by means of a combination of these. Elementary 



48 The Manual Arts 

education Is, then, from this point of view, the 
foundation of a structure which Is essentially voca- 
tional. And It is, or ought to be, just as funda- 
mental to success in the vocations connected with 
the Industries as with the professions, and. In fact, 
far more so. If there must be a difference, because 
the great majority of students go into the indus- 
tries. But whether we regard elementary educa- 
tion as chiefly a means to vocational ends or not, 
the fact of a vocational end in public education as a 
whole seems evident. 

The economic value of education certainly is 
not sufficiently appreciated In America. We be- 
lieve, in general, that education makes a man a bet- 
ter member of society, but we do not believe it in 
particular. We realize that an educated man has 
greater possibilities of making himself useful, but 
we do not see clearly the economy of educating 
every man to the point of making him the most 
efficient possible social unit. As some one has said, 
we believe in educating corn until it contains the 
highest possible proportion of the desired ele- 
ments; we believe in breeding horses and cattle 
and hogs and poultry; but we have not yet come 
to realize that educating men is just as profitable, 
provided, of course, that the education is in the 
direction of giving the best possible social results. 
We seem to be a long way from an appreciation 
of the full value of a healthy, efficient, happy 
human being. Perhaps the cultivation of such 



Vocational Training in Public Schools 49 

beings Is to be the great work of the twentieth 
century. If so, vocational education is going to be 
a big factor in accomplishing the desired result. 

Greater emphasis on the vocational elements in 
education need not cause any sacrifice In the total 
cultural effect. On the contrary it will tend to 
raise the general average of culture, (a) because 
it will keep pupils in school longer, and (b) be- 
cause the vocation may, for many students, become 
the most effective focal center around which a 
broad education may be gathered. There are two 
roads to a broad culture — one by way of a course 
that is general from beginning to end, the other 
by a narrower, vocational course which, If pursued 
long enough. Is bound to lead out into paths cov- 
ering the broad field. Dr. Kerchensteiner of 
Munich, when in conference with the Illinois Edu- 
cational Commission in Chicago, Indicated that it 
was his belief that of the two roads the latter was 
the better. It is not in harmony with the curricula 
of our American schools, but It is in harmony with 
one of the fundamental laws of our educational 
psychology. It possesses the advantage of build- 
ing upon natural Interests, and In addition to this, 
it insures getting to some definite end which is 
socially worth while. It would seem that the 
carrying out of this theory in the schools of 
Munich is striking a new note in educational 
method. Herbart would make history the focal 
center of the curriculum; Colonel Parker would 



50 The Manual Arts 

give that place to geography; but it has remained 
for Dr. Kerchensteiner, with his social and peda- 
gogical insight and his rare statesmanship, to 
make the vocation of the individual the focal 
center for his education, thereby elevating the 
vocation, while at the same time leading the stu- 
dent in the most natural possible way out into 
broad fields of knowledge and culture. Such a 
program is not a study of the humanities with 
humanity left out; on the contrary, it is in vital 
touch from beginning to end with the work and 
thoughts, the aspirations and the victories, of hu- 
man experience. While making a student, it pro- 
duces also a man — an efficient social unit. The 
best vocational education, then, is also cultural, 
and the best cultural education may come thru a 
training that is fundamentally vocational. 

Coming now to the question before us, we may 
say that in so far as vocational education is eco- 
nomically profitable to a city, state, or nation, it is 
justifiable, but as a matter of course, it should not 
take the place of any fundamental education that 
is more profitable. 

The nation is justified in training a few military 
leaders at West Point and Annapolis because the 
welfare of all the people of the nation, in time of 
war, depends upon the knowledge and leadership 
of these few experts. The nation is justified in 
educating chemists and biologists to test foods and 
prevent the spread of disease, also to train meter- 



Vocational Training in Public Schools 51 

ologlsts to prognosticate concerning the weather, 
because all the people benefit directly or indirectly 
by their work. By the same token the state is 
justified in educating every man to his highest 
efficiency in his chosen occupation, provided that 
in the pursuit of that occupation he serves the 
community in a beneficial way. It is not the func- 
tion of the state to educate pickpockets and hold- 
up men, boodlers, yellow-journalists, and anarch- 
ists. Indeed we should do everything possible to 
eliminate the kind of vocational training that pro- 
duces these in our midst. They are a very dan- 
gerous by-product of our social system, and may 
be, in part, at least, the result of our failure to 
give vocational guidance and adequate vocational 
training in the schools. 

For a striking illustration of the value of voca- 
tional education to a nation, we may turn to Ger- 
many: 

Years ago English manufacturers were both- 
ered by the importation of cheap goods from Ger- 
many. As England had no protective tariff to 
prevent such damage to her markets she resorted 
to an ingenious device, passing a law that all 
goods coming from Germany should be marked 
"Made in Germany." The aim in this act was to 
create a sentiment against such goods, and to warn 
every English buyer against the inferior imported 
articles that were threatening to undermine cer- 



52 The Manual Arts 

tain English industries. ''Made in Germany" was 
thus intended to signify inferiority. 

To an aspiring commercial nation this was a 
severe blow. It was in fact humiliating ; but it was 
accepted as a challenge. Germany set about to 
turn the trick back upon England, and quietly de- 
veloped her remarkable system of industrial 
schools and compulsory continuation schools. Her 
scientists and artists multiplied and focused their 
efforts upon industry. The quality of her goods 
improved steadily until today the phrase "Made 
in Germany" stands for a substantial quality and 
artistic finish that command the attention of the 
markets of the world. In many instances German 
products have crowded out English goods. 

In January, 1899, Germany's mastery of one of 
England's greatest industries had enabled her to 
produce that splendid steamship, "Kaiser Wilhelm 
der Grosse." This great vessel, perfect in every 
detail, had just crossed the Atlantic, making the 
swiftest passage of any vessel. With glowing 
pride in this achievement the captain painted on 
the side of his vessel, in great letters, the legend, 
"Made in Germany," and triumphantly sailed up 
the Solent to the port of Southampton. This was 
a fine bit of retaliation, and it was appreciated. 

After relating this incident to a body of stu- 
dents, J. H. Reynolds, director of the Municipal 
Technical School at Manchester, said, "The efli- 
cient cause for all I have been saying about Ger- 



Vocational Training in Public Schools ^^ 

many Is her schools." Germany believes that edu- 
cation pays because it helps men to become more 
efficient and she believes in making it compulsory 
because every worker should have a chance to rise 
to his highest efficiency, not only for his own sake 
but for the sake of the nation. 

Vocational training is justifiable in the public 
schools to such an extent as will be effective and 
economical In producing efficient citizens. 



CHAPTER V. 

The Selection and Organization of Sub- 
ject-Matter in the Manual Arts. 

T T seems unnecessary and even undesirable to 
^ attempt to draw a sharp line of demarkatlon 
between the manual arts for vocational ends and 
the manual arts for general educational ends. We 
should recognize a dual end in education, but we 
would not sever the whole educational system by 
a social line as Europe has done, and we would 
not start on that road by trying to separate the 
practical from the cultural in the subjects of 
instruction. With reference to this matter we 
believe that the layman who views school work 
from the outside and calls all handwork by the 
same name — all manual training or all industrial 
training or all vocational training, whichever word 
may have come into his vocabulary — is nearer the 
big truth than the educational expert who tries to 
divide what is and, in the nature of things, should 
be fundamentally an indivisible unit. The expert 
may point out different aspects of this unit and 
give them names, but he cannot make clear to the 
layman or the practical workman who thinks for 
himself, just where lines can reasonably be drawn 

54 



Selection of Subject-Matter in Manual Arts 55 

between the two. Why, then, should we try to 
emphasize such differences? 

But let us see; let us consider the matter. And 
In order to do this In a reasonable way let us first 
eliminate all manual training that is not practi- 
cal — that does not help In the formation of good 
habits In the use of tools and train for Intelligent 
workmanship, and at the same time eliminate all 
vocational work that makes a man a mere ma- 
chine — leads him into a narrow alley of thought 
and effort. This will eliminate a great deal of 
trash that by sufferance still passes under the name 
of manual training, but ought not to any longer 
because something better is here to take its place. 
It will also eliminate much repressive work now 
done under apprenticeship agreements, and some 
done by part-time and co-operative schools; but 
this also ought not to continue because a better way 
for all concerned has already been pointed out. 
After eliminating these, what is left has more 
likenesses than differences. The differences are 
no greater than between arithmetic and shop arith- 
metic; both are arithmetic, but the approach or the 
selection or the application Is different. In both 
the same eternal fundamentals are taught. Just 
so in woodworking or metalworking; the funda- 
mentals that are at the basis of any good work in 
either manual training or vocational training in 
these subjects are identical. This fact is so easily 
recognizable by every man who has been both a 



S6 The Manual Arts 

practical workman and a teacher that it seems 
unnecessary to instance the early history of manual 
training when the fundamentals — the elements of 
instruction — were obtained by subjecting the best 
practice in the mechanic arts to a process of analy- 
sis with reference to teaching, or to the fact that 
in the best trade courses today both in this country 
and Europe — those which have become well estab- 
lished and are turning out skillful men — base their 
instruction on these same fundamental elements. 
So far as the fundamentals of hand-tool instruc- 
tion are concerned the main difference between 
good manual training and good vocational train- 
ing is in the amount of time and the age of 
students, and not in the fundamental elements 
themselves. 

This, however, is not the whole story. There 
is a notable difference between arithmetic and shop 
arithmetic and that is in its application to modern 
shop problems. Likewise there is a difference be- 
tween manual training woodworking and voca- 
tional school woodworking and that difference is 
in its application to modern shop conditions. In 
other words, vocational woodworking is good 
manual training in wood plus the factory system. 
This formula seems too simple a one in which to 
state the complex situation we sometimes hear 
about in educational meetings and in the educa- 
tional press, but we believe it to be true. And 
if it is true for woodworking, it is likely to be 



Selection of Subject-Matter in Manual Arts 57 

just as true in other manual arts that have come 
under the modern factory system. 

By this formula, however, one should not at- 
tempt to solve all the problems of external and 
internal organization nor of method, tho it may 
help in some of these. The addition indicated 
in the formula may be performed in a physical 
sense, as by fusion, or in a biological sense as by 
natural selection thru a process of growth, using 
the best available means. Both of these processes 
are going on in vocational school experiments. 
And whichever way the addition is being per- 
formed there is always to be found on the inside 
a unity in the art that is being taught which is 
far more vital for the future of all this great 
movement in education than are the superficial 
and organization differences. 

When we analyze the situation for ourselves, 
instead of accepting somebody's dictum, we are 
forced to the conclusion that there is no sharp 
fundamental line of demarkation that should be 
drawn between the manual arts for vocational 
ends and the manual arts for general educational 
ends. The factory system which has been a dis- 
tinctive element in vocational schools has seemed 
to suggest the most reasonable line of demarka- 
tion, but, as has been shown, pedagogically 
speaking, the factory system in the school is 
essentially a means of teaching the application 
of fundamentals, which are the very essence of 



58 The Manual Arts 

manual training work. In the interests of future 
development this unity should be maintained and 
strengthened. 

Accepting this point of view, no marked dis- 
tinction will be made in the following discussion 
between the arts pursued for vocational ends and 
those for ends usually denominated as cultural or 
general. Indeed, an effort will be made to forget 
that there may be any difference. 

/. It is desirable to select subject-matter that 
has some Industrial value at the present time In 
our own nation or state. 

At Bradley Institute there Is an exhibit of fish 
traps, basket work, and mat-weaving that came 
from the Philippine Islands about a dozen years 
ago. In several respects it Is a remarkable exhibit 
of handicraft. It represents a great deal of skill 
and knowledge. It would be quite possible, with 
the requisite materials Imported to this country, 
to work out a course of problems which, if taught 
thoroly In our upper grammar grades, would en- 
able our American boys to make good fish traps 
of the Philippine type, also baskets and mats. 
But who would be willing to recommend that such 
work take the place of our own American wood- 
working and metalworking In the schools? Even 
though it were proven that the physical and mental 
effects of the fish trap course were superior, we 
would still refuse to make the substitution simply 
because we have no use for such fish traps, except 



Selection of Subject-Matter in Manual Arts 59 

to place them in museums. On the other hand, 
knowledge and skill in woodworking and metal- 
working are usable in America. Woodworking 
and metalworking with American bench tools have 
an industrial value. 

The city of Strasburg has developed a peculiar 
course in wood-carving. The work is done with 
tiny carving tools set in engraver's tool handles. 
In carving, a student takes a small block of wood 
about three inches square and holds it with his 
left hand on another block that is fastened to a 
desk top. He works in about the same way as 
an engraver of copper or silver who, with his 
left hand, holds his work on a leather pad filled 
with sand, while with his right hand he holds 
the tool and does the cutting. We would not 
recommend this type of work in the United States, 
even though we considered it good manual gym- 
nastics, because it has very little or no industrial 
value. It is neither real wood-carving nor is it 
good wood engraving. It is merely a hybrid 
industrial work developed by a school teacher 
for disciplinary purposes. If we are to teach 
wood-carving in the manual training school, it 
should be the kind of wood-carving used in 
America. 

To meet our first demand, then, the subject- 
matter of the manual arts must have some indus- 
trial value in the country where it is to be taught. 

2. For public school instruction it is desirable 



6o The Manual Arts 

to select subject-matter from typical common in- 
dustries rather than from the exceptional and 
uncommon ones. 

If we consult the United States census for 
1910, we find that 36 per cent, or 10,851,000 of 
the male population above 10 years of age, who 
are employed in gainful occupations are engaged 
in agriculture, forestry and animal husbandry; 29 
per cent, or 8,837,000 are engaged in manufac- 
turing and mechanical industries; 10 per cent, or 
3,146,000 are engaged in trade; 8 per cent, or 
2,531,000 are engaged in transportation; and less 
than half the latter number in each of the follow- 
ing: clerical occupations, domestic and personal 
service, professional service, public service and the 
extraction of minerals. This shows that agricul- 
ture employs the largest number of men, that 
manufacturing employs the second largest, and 
that these two together occupy the time of 65 per 
cent of the entire body of male workers. This 
would seem to indicate that the school is making 
no mistake when it looks to agriculture and manu- 
facturing for subject-matter. 

If we carry our analysis a little further, making 
a distinction between farmers and farm laborers, 
assuming that the former need more schooling 
than the latter, we find that more than half the 
total number engaged in agriculture, or about 
5,850,000 are in occupations in which a good 
education ought to be regarded as a necessity. If 



Selection of Subject-Matter in Manual Arts 6i 

we analyze the workers in the manufacturing in- 
dustries we find about the same to be true: A 
little more than half, or about 4,700,000 are 
skilled workers, 1,725,000 are semi-skilled, 2,400,- 
000 are laborers, and 100,000 are apprentices. 

If we carry the analysis still further we find that 
by grouping together the brick and stone masons, 
the carpenters, the builders and building contrac- 
tors, the plumbers and gas and steam fitters, and 
the painters, glaziers, varnishers, etc., we have 
the building group of 1,643,000 skilled workers. 
Then by bringing together the blacksmiths, forge- 
men and hammer men, the machinists, millwrights 
and toolmakers, the molders, founders and casters, 
the tinsmiths and coppersmiths and one-half of 
the foremen, overseers, manufacturers and offi- 
cials we have a metal industries group of 1,092,- 
000 skilled workers. It should be remembered in 
this connection that the number of semi-skilled 
and unskilled workers in the metal industries is 
especially large, being over 900,000. 

Besides these two major groups there are 
smaller groups, such as the printing and publish- 
ing industries, the textile and clothing industries, 
the shoe and leather industries, and the group of 
engineers and electricians. 

It would seem to be clear, then, that in the 
two great fields of agriculture and manufacturing, 
American schools should seek subject-matter. 



62 The Manual Arts 

5. The selection of subject-matter In any in- 
dustry should be based on an analysis of that 
industry. The same Is true if the subject-matter is 
to be taken from a group of Industries. 

Of all the heretical notions that have crept 
into our discussion of Industrial education during 
the past few years none seems to be more damag- 
ing than the idea that all you have to do to give 
a boy a vocational education is to give him jobs 
of work to do after the manner of the factory. 
We realize that this idea came as a reaction 
against a supposed or a real over-emphasis of 
logical procedure in rigid courses of instruction in 
handwork. But that is not sufficient excuse for 
throwing aside forty years of experience and going 
back to the point where we began in 1876. Even 
the factories themselves have proven that this is 
not the best way to educate their apprentices; 
they have established non-productive shops or 
semi-productive shops where courses of instruc- 
tion organized from the teaching standpoint 
are given. If proof were necessary several of 
the corporation schools in this country could fur- 
nish ample evidence that work organized for 
instruction purposes is quite different from work 
organized for the Immediate production of manu- 
factured goods. In other words, the factory 
method of employing a boy's time is not the most 
economical from the instruction standpoint. 



Selection of Subject-Matter in Manual Arts 63 

If this be recognized as fact then the road seems 
clear toward the organization of work from the 
teaching point of view, and this involves selecting 
fundamental elements of subject-matter. This 
selecting, in turn, involves an analysis of the 
processes of the industry itself. All the famous 
courses in handwork, whether for the training 
of mechanics, like the Russian system, or the 
course in the technical school at Chalon, France, 
or in the Carnegie Technical School In this coun- 
try; or for general education, like the sloyd work 
of Finland, Sweden and Denmark, or the manual 
training system of France, Germany, England and 
America; or in the highest schools of art crafts- 
manship in England, France and Germany; — In 
all of these the courses in handwork are based 
upon an analysis of trades, or groups of trades or 
Industries or parts of these. In every case some 
more or less definite field of Industrial work is 
selected — usually one trade, or several very closely 
allied trades — and analyzed with reference to 
selecting elements of subject-matter to use in in- 
struction. 

But not all analyses of the same trade are alike. 
One may be better than another. 

The usual analysis reduces the processes of the 
trade to Its simplest teaching elements, so that they 
appear one after another in mathematical order, 
like a string of beads, where the biggest is at one 



64 The Manual Arts 

end, and all are graded down to the smallest at 
the other. 

The group analysis is the division of the proc- 
ess into masses or groups of homogeneous or 
related matter. These may or may not be graded. 
They may be like the little bear, the middle-sized 
bear and the big bear in the story of the three 
bears, or they may be like bears of the same size. 
In either case each group must contain some vital 
element or elements in the process. 

A course of instruction based on the string-of- 
beads or course analysis takes into consideration 
the capacities and sometimes the interests of the 
average normal child to be taught, but it is weak 
because it is narrow and rigid; it may easily 
become stereotyped for the reason that it treats 
all students alike — it "runs them all thru the same 
mill." This kind of analysis used as a basis 
for the selection and organization of subject-mat- 
ter in certain manual training work would seem 
to be the cause of reaction against such work. 

A course of instruction based on a group an- 
alysis is better because it is flexible. It allows 
for individual differences. It lends Itself far bet- 
ter to the use of factory methods in so far as they 
may be used at all to advantage. It seems to be 
in harmony with what has come to us thru the 
study of the principles of modern pedagogy. 

The selection and organization of subject-mat- 
ter, then, should be based upon an analysis of the 



Selection of Subject-Matter in Manual Arts 65 

processes, trade, industry or industries studied, 
and that analysis should be made with reference 
to discovering groups or masses or chapters of 
subject-matter in each of which there are funda- 
mental, vital elements. 

4. The trade or industry analyzed for the 
purpose of obtaining elements of subject-matter 
should be typical and modern. 

It is quite possible to make an analysis of indus- 
trial processes that are not typical. For example, 
one might readily find a man called a machinist 
in a big factory and follow him in his work from 
day to day, making an analysis of his trade, but it 
would be found to be lacking in elements which 
are considered vital in the equipment of a machin- 
ist for another shop. And so the question arises, 
Where shall we find the typical machinist? in the 
big factory or in the small? in the specialized work 
of the big industrial city or the more varied work 
common to the smaller town? To train men for 
one set of factory conditions is not usually re- 
garded as the highest type of vocational education, 
and certainly not the best general education. The 
typical example of a trade or industry is not always 
easy to find, but it should be sought for purposes 
of educational analysis. 

Besides being typical it should be modern. The 
analysis of cabinet-making as it would have been 
made by a New York or New England cabinet- 
maker of fifty years ago would be defective today. 



66 The Manual Arts 

The same would be true of nearly every trade 
or Industry. Re-analysis will be needed from time 
to time. It does not take very many years in some 
industries for a process to become obsolete. The 
school should recognize this fact in selecting its 
subject-matter for industrial courses. 

5. The resulting groups of subject-matter may 
vary greatly in amount, in time required, in general 
character, but each must contain some element or 
elements vital to the subject under instruction and 
the groups should, as a rule, be arranged in some 
sequential order. 

For fear that there may be some reader who 
is afraid of that word "sequential," it should be 
stated that the resulting groups mentioned are not 
based on the string-of-beads or course analysis, 
but rather on the group analysis: there is a great 
difference. There is no reason to be afraid of a 
sequential order if it does not lead to stereotyped 
teaching. It surely is a safeguard against attempt- 
ing things too difficult. It is also an insurance 
against lack of preliminary training. 

By way of summary we may again ask and 
briefly answer the question: What should govern 
the choice of subject-matter in courses of study in 
the manual arts? 

Subject-matter in the manual arts must have 
some industrial value whether it is given in a voca- 
tional course or in a scheme of general education. 
It should be taken from typical, present, common 



Selection of Subject-Matter in Manual Arts 67 

industries rather than from obsolete or uncommon 
industries or parts of trades, except of course in 
the case of highly specialized vocational courses 
which are intended to meet specific demands. The 
selection of subject-matter in any industry should 
be based on an analysis of that industry. This 
analysis should be made with reference to finding 
groups of related subject-matter, each of which is 
vital to the industry being taught. Only such 
examples of the industry under consideration as 
are typical and modern should be used in making 
this analysis. The resulting groups of subject-- 
matter should then be arranged in sequential order 
for purposes of instruction. 

It is believed that these are safe governing 
propositions whether the instruction be given in 
a vocational class or is an Integral part of a scheme 
of general education. 



CHAPTER VI. 

The Group Method of Organizing Subject- 

Matter in the Manual Arts with 

Reference to Teaching. 

^T^HE Group Method of organizing subject- 
matter in the manual arts grew out of an 
effort to harmonize class and individual methods 
of instruction. The Russian system of tool in- 
struction with its "string-of-beads" course or an- 
alysis and its tool exercises and joints demonstra- 
ted the value of class instruction. The Swedish 
sloyd, also with a '*string-of-beads" analysis, but 
with useful models, emphasized individual instruc- 
tion. The Russian system was developed to train 
men for service in connection with the government 
railways. The aim was to produce intelligent and 
skillful workers as rapidly and economically as pos- 
sible. Consequently the class was the center of 
the teacher's effort. Consideration of the indi- 
vidual was secondary or supplementary. The 
Swedish system was evolved as part of a scheme 
of general education. Its first aim was child de- 
velopment, and having this aim, it recognized 
individual differences, and so insisted on individual 
instruction. The coming together of these two 
systems in the United States resulted in clashing 

68 



Group Method of Organizing Subject-Matter 69 

of ideals and methods out of which has been 
developed an American system which is essentially 
different from either but includes elements gained 
from both. The group method of arranging the 
course came from neither one, but it was the result 
of an effort to combine the economy and stimulus 
of class instruction with the best consideration of 
the needs of individual pupils. 

In the period before 1893 it was the common 
fault of teachers who had been trained to or had 
imbibed the idea of class Instruction, that they 
constantly strove to keep all the pupils of a class 
together in their work. The striving of these 
teachers was constant because their aim could 
never be accomplished under ordinary school con- 
ditions. Children were not alike and they could 
not be made so. Many were the devices resorted 
to in this vain effort. Some of these may be illus- 
trated by observations made on a tour thru cities 
in Massachusetts, New Jersey and Pennsylvania in 
1892. For convenience the schools visited may 
be designated as A, B, C, D, and E. 

A was a manual training high school. Here 
the teacher of woodworking was demonstrating 
the making of a dovetail-lap joint. At the close of 
a very skillful demonstration he said to the class, 
"These joints must all be handed in tomorrow 
afternoon at three o'clock." When questioned 
about this statement he said that there would be no 



yo The Manual Arts 

difficulty about the matter. He was sure that 
even the slowest in the class could get the work 
done by that time. When asked what the rapid 
pupils would do who completed the work before- 
that time he said. "They will be excused, and 
allowed to go to the library or to the drawing 
room to do other work." 

This teacher had avoided the usual problem by 
gaging his work to the capacity of the slowest 
pupil and then excusing pupils as fast as they com- 
pleted the required work. This was no solution 
of the real problem because in most schools teach- 
ers were required to keep all their pupils and to 
keep them busy until the end of the class period. 

B was a normal school. The teacher was asked 
if he had any difficulty in keeping his class to- 
gether for class instruction. "No," he replied, 
"as soon as the first pupil has completed the given 
model I call the class together and demonstrate 
the next one. All go to work on the new model, 
and the previous one has to be completed out of 
regular class time — mostly on Saturdays." When 
the remark was dropped that some pupils might 
need a good many Saturdays, he cheerfully replied, 
"Yes, already some of them have all their Satur- 
days spoken for to the end of the year." This 
was in the winter. 

Like the teacher at A this one had avoided the 
real problem, but unlike the teacher at A, he had 



Group Method of Organizing Subject-Matter 71 

gaged his work by the fast pupil instead of the 
slow one, and thus accumulated difficulties for 
himself and his pupils. 

C was an ordinary high school with a manual 
training annex. When the teacher was asked what 
he did with the rapid worker who completed his 
joint before the other members of the class, he 
said, "I give him repair work to do about the shop. 
If a bench needs fixing, or a belt needs lacing, or 
a drawer needs to be planed off, I keep him busy 
at that till I am ready to demonstrate the next 
exercise." "Do the boys like it?" he was asked, 
"Yes, they look upon it as a reward of merit." 
He admitted, however, that if they ever ceased 
to look upon such work as desirable, he might 
have some difficulty with his plan. In this case 
the personality of the man was a large factor in 
the success of the plan in this particular school. 

D was a well organized grammar school center. 
When the teacher was asked whether he had ex- 
perienced any difficulty in keeping his rapid pupils 
busy while they were waiting for the others to 
catch up, so that he could give class instruction on 
a new exercise or model, he said, "Last year as 
soon as the first boy completed the first exercise 
in the course I gave him a blueprint of a stool 
and told him to get out stock for the legs. He 
worked on that till the demonstration of ,the 
second exercise was given. He was usually ahead 



72 The Manual Arts 

on the second exercise also, and then did some 
more work on his stool. This continued until the 
end of the year when several of the boys had 
completed their stools besides all the required 
exercises and models." When asked whether the 
plan was a success he said, "Yes, only some of the 
boys wished they had never seen those old stools 
before the year was out." The breaking off and 
beginning over and over again was too severe a 
strain on the boys' interest. "I have a new plan 
this year that is working out better," he said, and 
then showed some blueprints of exercises in chip- 
carving. "As soon as the first boy is thru his first 
exercise I give him a block of wood and a blue- 
print, and tell him to lay out the first exercise. 
He can usually do this. Then I show him how to 
cut out a chip, and he proceeds with the work. It 
doesn't take him long to complete the first exer- 
cise; then he takes the second, and so on. As a 
reward to the rapid pupils, when they come to the 
towel roller, each one carves a design on it, while 
the slow pupils finish theirs without the carving." 

The teacher was asked whether he had ever 
noticed that some pupils prefer the carving to the 
regular work, and so are inclined to slight the 
latter to get more time for the former. He said 
he had. Likewise he admitted that some pre- 
ferred the regular work and always managed to 



Group Method of Organizing Subject-Matter 73 

slow up enough toward the end of an exercise so 
that they would not have to do the carving. 

The testimonies of the teachers at C and D 
seemed to indicate that the solution of the real 
problem did not lie in the direction of doing two 
kinds of work — one as the regular course and the 
other as busy work. 

E was a grammar grade center. In this school 
the teacher had come one step nearer to finding a 
solution of the problem. He had arranged two 
parallel courses — one of exercise pieces, and the 
other of useful models involving the same proc- 
esses as the exercise pieces : One of these sug- 
gested a Russian course, the other a Swedish, tho 
all the models were thoroly American in design. 
As soon as the fast boy had completed an exer- 
cise he was given the corresponding model in 
the parallel course as a supplementary problem. 
Comparing this plan with that of the teacher at 
D, it had the advantage over the stool of not 
requiring so much time for completion and over 
the chip-carving of being work of the same general 
character as the required exercise. It had the 
added advantage of involving a repetition of the 
same processes as were in the previous exercises 
and of not including any fundamental ones which 
had not been involved in some previous exercise. 
This method of organizing the course, therefore, 
stimulated interest, enabling a rapid pupil to ac- 



74 The Manual Arts 

quire Increased skill and to produce useful articles 
of a higher order. 

The net results of all these observations was 
the conclusion that instead of trying to devise 
schemes for keeping pupils together, an effort 
should be made to so organize the work that 
each pupil would develop freely as an individual 
while at the same time having the advantage of 
class Instruction in the fundamentals of the work. 
Thought for the average pupil should give way 
to thought for each Individual pupil. The Idea 
of one fixed series of models for all pupils should 
give way to the Idea of as many different series 
as there are individual pupils, yet so grouped 
together as to have common elements which would 
be subjects for class instruction. Out of this new 
conception of the teacher's problem came the 
group method of arranging the course, which was 
first displayed by Teachers College, New York 
City, at the Columbian Exposition at Chicago 
in 1893. 

The group method Is based on a group analysis 
referred to In the previous chapter. A course of 
Instruction Is made up of groups or blocks or 
chapters of subject-matter, usually, tho not neces- 
sarily, arranged In sequential order, just as one 
chapter In a book usually follows naturally after 
the preceding one. Each group must contain 
one or more of the fundamental elements of the 



Group Method of Organizing Subject-Matter 75 

course which forms the focus or center of the 
group. In woodworking, for example, one such 
fundamental element might be the construction of 
a miter joint; the group might be devoted to the 
miter joint and its applications. Or in mechanical 
drawing the fundamental element might be the 
drawing of tangent lines; the group might include 
a large number of problems involving the draw- 
ing of tangent lines. This fundamental element 
is made the subject of class instruction. 

Class instruction should also be given on in- 
formational elements, which are important for all 
members of the class, tho not fundamental to suc- 
cessful manipulation of tools. Facts concerning 
materials and tools and related processes in factor- 
ies, commercial value of materials and products, 
etc., are included in such informational elements. 

Supplementing this class instruction a large 
amount of individual instruction must be given. 
Even after exercising all the skill that the best 
teacher possesses and utilizing all the help that 
can be gained from note-books and textbooks and 
reference material of various kinds, the teacher 
will still have to give a large proportion of his 
time to individual instruction, and It is important 
that he have time to do this effectively. 

In fact, the group method of arranging a course 
Is intended to assist the teacher in his management 
of the class so that he will be able to preserve the 



76 The Manual Arts 

proper balance between class and Individual In- 
struction, while maintaining the maximum of the 
pupils' Interest and their Intelligent procedure in 
the work. 

Working under the group arrangement, no two 
pupils will be likely to accomplish the same amount 
of work, yet all may readily pass the minimum 
requirement. No two will work the same combi- 
nation of problems, but each may make the things 
that appeal most to him. One student may do 
work that is far more difficult than another, yet 
each may be most profitably employed, and both 
deserve the passing credit for the course. 

This Is just what happens In a class In history: 
Suppose, for example, that a history class is study- 
ing the Civil War. One pupil learns the bare 
facts of the chapter In the textbook; another learns 
these plus what he gained from several other text- 
books suggested for reference ; a third pupil adds 
what his uncle, who was a soldier in that war, has 
told him; a fourth has read "The Boys of '61," 
by Charles Carlton Coffin; a fifth has gone to the 
public library and searched out several large his- 
tories and some volumes of state papers published 
during the war. Now it Is clear that at the end 
of the chapter on the Civil War no two of these 
pupils know just the same group of facts about 
the Civil War, but all know enough to pass on 
to the next topic. Each has learned according to 
his interest or capacity or effort. Each may have 



Group Method of Organizing Subject-Matter 77 

done well for him. They are not all given the 
same mark, but all pass. 

A group in a manual arts course corresponds 
almost point for point to this chapter in history. 
It is the same flexible, expansive mass of subject- 
matter. One student may do only the minimum 
amount required to pass on to the next group; 
another may complete a specified problem in the 
group that demands a typical application of the 
fundamental principle of the group as it appears 
in industry; another may complete a specified prob- 
lem in the group that stimulates him to look up 
references in books or to make inquiries of indus- 
trial workers or to do some experimental work 
on his own account; still another may work out a 
project of his own designing which applies the 
principle of the group to an object for which he 
has a definite need. 

To illustrate the group method of organizing 
subject-matter the following outline by groups is 
taken from the author's book, Graimnar Grade 
Problems in Mechanical Drawing: 

Group I. Horizontal and Vertical Lines — Layout of 
Sheet. 

Group IL Horizontal and Vertical Lines — Dash Lines. 

Group IIL Inclined Lines — Foreshortening — Use of Tri- 
angles. 

Group IV. The Octagon and the Hexagon. 

Group V. The Circle — Center Lines — Sections. 

Group VI. Tangents. 

Group VII. Working Drawings. 



78 The Manual Arts 

Another Illustration of the grouping of subject- 
matter is found In the outline for a course in forg- 
ing, published by the Illinois Manual Arts Associ- 
ation in its report of 1 9 11 . It is as follows : 

Group I. Drawing Out — Bending and Twisting. 

Group II. Upsetting — Splitting. 

Group III. Punching — Fullering — Swaging. 

Group IV. Welding. 

Group V. Case Hardening. 

Group VI. Tool Making. 

Group VII. Hardening and Tempering. 

Group VIII. Project involving Assembling. 

Each of the groups in both of the above courses 
includes several problems. For example, Group 
V in the first course includes the following objects 
to be drawn : 

A, target; B, wheel; C, ink bottle stand; D, 
cast iron washer; E, mallet head; F, collar; G, 
bushings; H, pulley; I, roller; J, washers; K, 
emery wheels; L, picture frame — twelve prob- 
lems given, but more may be added by the teacher 
if needed. A group Is capable of Indefinite ex- 
pansion so far as the number of problems, or 
applications of the principles to be taught Is con- 
cerned. 

Referring now to the method of presenting 
these problems, A and B are given complete; B 
shows a cross-hatched section. In C the section is 
given complete, but the top view Is incomplete. 
In D two views are given, and the student Is 



Group Method of Organizing Subject-Matter 79 

required to substitute a section for one of them. 
In E three views are given, bufone of them is 
incomplete. In F two views are given to find a 
third, which is a sectional view. In G one view of 
each bushing is given incomplete. In H the sub- 
stitution of a section for one view, and the com- 
pletion of another, are required. In I one view is 
incomplete. In J the problem is given in the form 
of a sketch and a data table, such as is commonly 
used in the drafting room. In K there are really 
four problems given in the form of sections, only 
one of which is intended to be drawn by an indi- 
vidual pupil. In L two sections of circular picture 
frames are given, from one of which a drawing 
is to be made. If the extra problems in K and L 
are counted, there are sixteen specified problems 
in this group. It is expected that each teacher 
will add others of his own selection or of selections 
made by pupils. With so many and so varied 
problems to select from, the teacher ought to be 
able to meet all ordinary individual needs, while 
at the same time keeping within the range of the 
group — without anticipating the next group, and 
destroying the effectiveness of class instruction in 
that group. With such a group of problems, too, 
a teacher may assign problems in such a way that 
there will not be the possibility of one pupil copy- 
ing from his nearest neighbor, thus getting the 
neighbor to do his thinking for him. 



8o The Manual Arts 

Only a small proportion of these problems 
should be required of any one pupil. While 
increased skill would be gained by doing them 
all, such skill might not be an economical use of 
time for all pupils, and the working out of all 
the problems by every member of the class would 
defeat the very purpose of the group method of 
arrangement. Instead, the teacher should deter- 
mine some kind of a minimum standard for pass- 
ing. It may be a specified number of drawings 
up to an acceptable grade; it may be a standard 
of skill and intelligence In the work, without refer- 
ence to the number of problems completed. In 
the particular group of drawing problems given 
above the requirement might be stated as ''Prob- 
lem A, one of problems B to F, and one of prob- 
lems G to L — three in all." This would allow for 
a very considerable range of ability, and demand 
at least a fair standard of attainment. However, 
the requirement for a given class must depend 
upon conditions known only to the teacher of the 
class or some one giving close supervision to the 
work. 

Two very simple graphs have been devised to 
indicate to the pupil his individual progress and 
success. One shows the amount of work done 
and the other the quality. 



Group Method of Organizing Subject-Matter 8i 



Fig. 1 is a quantity diagram. Area represents 
work. The Figure ABCD represents the possible 
work in a course of study consisting of eight 
groups. The areas are left open at the top be- 
cause the total amount of work that might be done 
A 



Jc 



m 



w Y 
Fig. 1. 



m 



YE " vrrr 



in each group is Indefinite. The rectangle EBCF 
represents the required amount of work in the 
course. In this case the figure assumes that the 
same amount Is required In each group. The line 
GH represents the record of one of the students 
in the class who has made most commendable 
progress. The area GBCH represents the work 
he has done in the course, which in quantity is more 
than twice the amount required for passing. The 
line IJ is the record of a student found In many 
schools. He made a brilliant start, was enthusi- 
astic until the baseball season, when he changed 
to another hobby and ended the course below the 
required standard, though the amount of work 



82 



The Manual Arts 



accomplished as Indicated by the area IBCJ is 
greater than that included In the minimum area 
EBCF. 

In like manner the amount of work accom- 
plished by each Individual may be represented, 
but, as will be readily seen, the construction of 
any such graph requires that the teacher shall 
have reasonable means of evaluating the quantity 
area that shall be allowed for each problem as- 
signed. But this kind of graph may prove stimu- 
lating, even when very roughly done. 

The quality graph is similar In some respects. 
It Is shown in Fig. 2. 



A 












^v 


>»— * 


B ^ 


r^ 


A - 


^ s^ 


r^ 


-e-v^ 


V^ 




'\/ 


V^.. .-. 


V' 




V 








D ^ 
















E 

















IE 



HI 



Fig. 2 



321 



-mi 



•yrrr. 



The letters ABCD and E represent the usual 
grades, the line between D and E being the passing 
line. If desired, the position in the area can indi- 
cate whether a mark is high or low, plus or minus, 
as a high C or low C for example. Fig. 2 shows 
the record of one student only. It is quite pos- 
sible for a teacher to have a card with the cross 
lines as shown in Fig. 2 for each student in the 
class and fill in his record as fast as work is com- 



Group Method of Organizing Subject-Matter 83 

pleted. These can be kept In card catalog form 
and readily consulted at any time. It Is quite 
possible for the card to represent approximate 
quantity as well as quality. For example, in Fig. 3, 



A 


















R 










^«s 










y 


~^ 


c 


vA^ 


^^ 


A 




•^ 




s. 




B 


/ V 


V 


V 












L 



















13 



112 



ni4- 



Fig. 3 



in 



VTT^ VTrr i 



the small figures beside the group numbers Indi- 
cate the number of pieces of work required In 
each group. The student's record shown on the 
card Indicates, by being broken, that he has not 
done all required pieces of work. There are two 
short in Group III and the one In Group VIII. 
On the other hand it reveals the fact that he did 
one more than the required number of pieces of 
work In Group II. 

It should now be evident that under the group 
arrangement of the subject-matter of the course 
of instruction a class moves forward together 
group by group, yet each member of the class 
grows breadth-wise, so to speak, within each group 
as an individual. Individual expansion or de- 
velopment is combined with class progress. While 
the use of this arrangement did not Involve any 



84 The Manual Arts 

new principle In teaching, it was essentially new 
in teaching manual training at the time when the 
"war between the jointers and sloyders" began, 
but since that time it has come to be a commonly 
applied device In arranging the subject-matter of 
courses of instruction in the manual arts. More- 
over, it deals with so many fundamental factors 
in good teaching that, altho it originated in 
courses taught for their general educational 
value, it is equally applicable to strictly vocational 
courses. It is applicable wherever there are indi- 
vidual differences in children coupled with a desire 
to give class instruction on vital or common ele- 
ments in the course. 



CHAPTER VII. 

The Use of the Factory System in Teaching 
THE Manual Arts. 

A S one goes from city to city visiting the newer 
types of industrial school shops it is easy to 
get the impression that many advocates of voca- 
tional training think there is special virtue in the 
fact that a school shop is turning out a marketable 
factory product. Such men seem to think that all 
that is necessary to be done to bring shopwork up 
to date is to have the boys manufacture stools to 
sell to the local furniture dealer or study tables to 
sell to the Board of Education, or to make the 
equipment for a teachers' rest room in the high 
school. The inference seems to be that the school 
shop that can do such work must be a superior 
shop; it must be giving real vocational training. 
On the other hand, any person who has had real 
vocational experience in a woodworking shop, 
who is acquainted with the processes of manufac- 
turing, and at the same time is acquainted with the 
processes of teaching, is well aware of the fact 
that it is quite possible to get a group of boys to 
turn out a salable product without teaching them 
much of anything. Even the factories can do 
that. They are doing it right along, and it Is 

85 



86 The Manual Arts 

because such a factory system Is an educational 
failure that schools for vocational training arc 
needed. The accomplishment of such a feat In the 
school Is no more guarantee of real vocational edu- 
cation than when the same thing Is done In a fac- 
tory. Merely turning out a valuable or salable 
product Is no adequate criterion for a school shop. 

A factory may or may not be a good educational 
institution, depending upon the way It Is organized 
and administered. If It employs educational 
methods and keeps education as the chief aim, It 
may be a good school; If It makes material prod- 
ucts Its sole aim, It Is not fundamentally an educa- 
tional Institution at all. A man working In It may 
"pick up" a trade or a part of a trade, but he 
might get much more of the trade In the same 
length of time were the shop organized to teach 
Instead of to make money. Even the large fac- 
tories are recognizing this fact, and the corpora- 
tion schools are teaching their apprentices at first 
In a shop that is either non-productive or nearly so. 

It was with some appreciation of this point of 
view that Bradley Institute, in the year of 1911, 
set out to discover thru actual experiment some of 
the possibilities of utilizing a producing wood- 
working factory as a means of teaching a vocation 
and as further aid in training teachers of voca- 
tional woodworking. It was realized that this was 
not entirely a new experiment, for similar work 
had been carried on successfully at Hampton In- 



Factory System in Teaching Manual Arts 87 

stitute, Virginia, and in other places. But the con- 
ditions at Bradley Institute seemed favorable for 
testing certain claims concerning methods of voca- 
tional training and the educative value of factory 
shop experience. 

To go into all the difficulties encountered and 
the means taken to solve new problems would take 
one beyond the limits of the present chapter, but 
it is possible briefly ( 1 ) to state a few facts con- 
cerning the material equipment of the shop; (2) 
to explain the cost system adopted; (3) to give a 
summary of the results in manufactured products; 
(4) to state the main facts concerning the organ- 
ization of the subject-matter taught and the 
method of procedure in teaching; and (5) to give 
a few conclusions based on experience. 

The room selected for the factory shop was 40 
by 100 feet. It was fitted up with the usual wood- 
working machinery. In arranging the machinery 
the first consideration was facility in handling the 
work. In other words, the considerations were 
chiefly those of equipping a commercial factory. 
The main difference was in having a long row of 
benches on one side of the room, but these were 
inherited from a former school shop and might 
not have been quite as numerous under other con- 
ditions. Also, some of the machinery was in- 
herited, but that was essentially what would have 
been purchased If It had not been already on hand. 



88 The Manual Arts 

There was one entirely new feature of the equip- 
ment which was looked upon as essential In any 
school shop that adopts factory methods, and that 
was the trucks for storing and carrying material 
in process of manufacture. Whenever one goes to 
a school woodworking shop that claims to be giv- 
ing vocational Instruction by factory methods, he 
should at once look for the trucks. If woodwork- 
ing machinery Is there and the trucks are not, he 
may begin to question In his own mind whether he 
Is In a vocational shop or in a manual training 
shop. In other words, the truck has come to be 
the symbol of the woodworking factory shop. It 
would be difficult to conceive of modern factory 
methods being carried out In a real way where no 
such trucks are available. This, then, is a sum- 
mary of the factory shop equipment: machines In 
sufficient number, with plenty of trucks, and all so 
arranged that there Is sufficient space around the 
machines for the placing of the trucks, and a clear 
aisle for trundling the trucks of material from one 
part of the shop to another. To this should, of 
course, be added the statement that the machines 
must be so arranged that a job may be routed with- 
out undue waste of time in going from one ma- 
chine to another. 

No school can afford to maintain a woodwork- 
ing factory without disposing of its products in 
such a way as to pay for the material used. This 
becomes a problem because a woodworking fac- 



Factory System in Teaching Manual Arts 89 

tory requires a large amount of lumber to keep it 
busy. Some schools can find a market for their 
school factory products in their own institution; 
others will find it necessary to seek a market for 
at least a part of their products. Bradley Institute 
has pursued the latter course. It manufactures 
for its own use, and then sells to other schools a 
limited quantity of products, such as drawing 
boards, workbenches, drawing tables, cabinets, 
samples of wood, mitered table legs, and cases for 
unfinished work. It also does occasional special 
jobs by contract, when they are needed to keep up 
a sufficient supply and the requisite variety of 
work. 

In order to handle all this work in an intelligent 
and businesslike way a cost system was adopted. 
Before adopting this, however, several systems 
were studied, and finally a very simple one was 
decided upon. The blanks used are, first, the shop 
order sheet. Fig. 4, which is made out in the busi- 
ness office of the Department of Manual Arts and 
forwarded with the drawing or other specifications 
to the teacher in charge of the factory shop. These 
order forms in duplicate are made up in books. 
The original is on a white sheet; the carbon dupli- 
cate Is on a pink sheet and remains in the order 
book as an office record. 

When the job is completed the teacher sends to 
the office a cost sheet. Fig. 5. The order number 
corresponds with the number on the shop order 



90 The Manual Arts 



8HOP ORDER NO. 



Data of Issue. 



.Department, 



UACter the Supervreton of- 



Have the following work done, and a memorandum of cost (tir"> 
and materials in separate Items) sent to this office. 

It should be completed— — . 

Signed 



BRAOLCV POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTC OKPARTMCNT Of MANUAL ART* 

•HOP ORDER SHEET. 

Fig. 4 



Factory System in Teaching Manual Arts 91 
Shop OaoER No 

For . 



Date of Report . 
Made by 



labor: 

Class A, Hours 






" B, 






•• C, 






.. D, 






.. E^ 






.< F. 






•• Q, 






" H, " 






materials: 














































OFF«CF- 






TOTAL 













BRAOLCY POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTC. OCPARTMCNT or MANUAL ARTS 
COST SHCCT. 

Fig. 5 



92 The Manual Arts 

sheet. The labor is classified strictly according to 
commercial value, or as near to that as the teacher 
can estimate. Class A represents an expert work- 
man, usually the teacher, working at a machine. 
Class B represents an expert workman working at 
the bench. Class C represents a good workman — 

ORDER WORKMAN DATE 



START FINISH TIME 



WORK 



Fig. 6. Time Slip 

one of the strongest students — and a machine; 
Class D represents a good workman at the bench. 
And so the labor is graded down to G and H, 
which stand for work of the "helper" grade. 
Each of these grades has a corresponding money 
value, which is used in completing each labor item 
on the sheet after it has been sent to the office. 
Materials are reported in similar detail. These 
items added, together with any extra office charge, 
give the total cost of the job. As in many modern 
factories, these cost items are figured so as to per- 
mit of the usual trade discounts. 

The time slip used is shown in Fig. 6. This is 
printed, four on a sheet, with perforations be- 
tween each. It is essentially a copy of a time slip 
which has been in successful use for many years 



Factory System in Teaching Manual Arts 93 

in certain woodworking factories In New England. 
The workman makes out a separate slip for each 
order worked on during the day, and therefore 
hands in as many slips each day as there are jobs 
worked on. The teacher on receiving them mere- 
ly sees that the total Is correct for the day and 
marks the classification on each slip as C, F, etc. 
Then he tears the slips apart, if still fastened to- 
gether, and hangs them on hooks for the purpose, 
one hook for each order, or he groups them in a 
drawer or box, as seems to him to be convenient. 
When the job is done he summarizes the slips and 
puts the totals on the cost sheet. Fig. 5. This 
sheet Is made in duplicate as was the case with the 
shop order sheets, so that a carbon copy is kept by 
the teacher. In this case, however, the original 
Is a yellow sheet and the duplicate a white one. 
The colors add to the convenience In handling, 
especially in the Department office. When the 
system was first started, material slips similar to 
the time slips were used, but now stock bills made 
out by the workmen or a sub-foreman or by the 
teacher, as the case may be, are substituted for 
these slips in keeping a record of the material for 
a given job. 

The cost sheets in the Department office serve 
in making out bills, in making financial statements 
of the shopwork, and in estimating future jobs. 

The first shop order Issued under this system 
was on Jan. 16, 1912. Between that date and 



94 The Manual Arts 

Sept. 1, 1912, work was completed to the value 
of about $800. The reports for the next three 
years give the following figures : 

Year ending Sept. 1, 1913 . .$1,595.11 
Year ending Sept. 1, 1914.. 2,052.81 
Year ending Sept. 1, 1915.. 1,475.11 

In making up the above figures a discount was 
taken oE of all items not sold for cash, so that the 
figures are well within the actual value. Among 
the products sold for cash were drawing tables for 
a local public school, rural school benches, play- 
ground slide and teeter-totter for a children's 
home, a variety of furniture, drawing boards, 
study tables, bench-hooks, bread rack for a bakery, 
case of small drawers, stock for school use, etc. 
For the use of other departments of the Institute 
there were made a spring board, trestles, bleach- 
ers, etc., for the gymnasium; benches and table for 
the horology school; and tables, bookcases, and 
chart cases for several other departments. For 
the Manual Arts Department there has been made 
a large volume of work, including individual lock- 
ers for drawing room, drawing tables, interlocking 
drawing board cabinets, coat lockers, exhibit 
frames, foundry equipment, work-benches, tool 
cabinets, tables, furniture, drawing boards, T- 
squares, wood pulleys, and many more. 

The man employed as teacher in the factory 
shop had taught very little before taking charge of 



Factory System in Teaching Manual Arts 95 

this shop, but during thirteen years of practical 
experience he had come in contact with the real 
problems of carpentry and millwork and pattern 
making. He therefore approached the problem 
from the vocation, and not from the school stand- 
point. During the first year he was working under 
the supervision of a man with many years of ex- 
perience in teaching manual training classes in 
woodworking. The aim of both men was, first, to 
organize a real producing factory, admitting a 
comparatively few students, and then, little by 
little, to solve the problems of giving instruction 
as they came along in the natural order of devel- 
opment. It took comparatively little time to es- 
tablish the factory routine, but it has taken much 
more time to determine the most effective organ- 
ization of subject-matter and the best methods of 
giving Instruction. In making decisions It has been 
necessary to keep two facts constantly In mind: 
First, that the aim of the shop is to teach and not 
to make money; and, second, that the factory 
routine and factory methods of doing work are an 
essential part of the educational scheme and must 
therefore be retained. The big problem, then, has 
been to harmonize the educational aim, namely, 
to produce intelligent, thoroly trained workmen, 
and the factory routine, which Is Intended to pro- 
duce high-grade manufactured products at a speed 
that is acceptable in a commercial factory. 



96 The Manual Arts 

After three and one-half years of experiment- 
ing, the scheme of training, or the course of In- 
struction, may be outlined as follows : 

Group A. Before any student Is allowed to use 
the machines of the shop, or any one machine, a 
series of demonstrations is given to acquaint the 
members of the class with the construction and 
operation of the machines. Minute instruction 
concerning the positions to be taken in working at 
each machine is given, and emphasis is placed on 
precautions to be taken in order to avoid acci- 
dents. 

Group B. The first real experience at the ma- 
chines is in getting out stock and such other rough 
work as will give experience in the use of the cut- 
off saw, the jointer, and the surfacer. The time 
spent in such work varies, with the student, from 
ten days, four hours a day, to two months, accord- 
ing to his ability. The average time is about six 
weeks. During this period it is expected that 
every student will be taught to measure lumber 
and identify a few of the common woods, both in 
the rough and surfaced. 

Group C, As soon as the students have proven 
their reliability In the rough work they are taken 
off, one or two at a time, and started on the second 
type of work. This consists of making three or 
more joints from models given to the students. 
From the commercial factory standpoint this work 
is entirely non-productive, but experiments seem 



Factory System in Teaching Manual Arts 97 

to have proven conclusively that It is really a time 
saver and a lumber saver. It usually occupies 
from four to seven days and it prevents wasting 
many feet of lumber. The joints required of all 
are (a) a panel joint, (b) glass door joint, or rab- 
beted mortise-and-tenon joint, and (c) table leg 
joint. Others that are often added to this list are 
the sash joint, the table leaf joint (made later in 
the course when the student is allowed to use the 
shaper), the stretcher joint, etc. The joints are 
kept by the students for reference. The experi- 
ence gained in this type of work seems to be of 
great value in thinking out the parts of a structure 
in their relation to each other, and it helps to de- 
velop an appreciation of the importance of ac- 
curacy in setting the machines. 

Group D. The third type of work consists of 
small panel doors, glass doors, backs of cases and 
such other work of about the same grade of diffi- 
culty as may be available. Here, as elsewhere 
thruout the course, the students are promoted in- 
dividually from one type of work to another, the 
basis of promotion being dependent on reliability 
in doing a thoro piece of work in a reasonable 
length of time, judged by the standard of the com- 
mercial factory. During this period each student 
makes a sketch of the piece he Is making, and pre- 
pares a stock bill. This sketch is often made from 
a blueprint or drawing of the structure of which 
he is making a part. Often the problem involves 



98 The Manual Arts 

many duplicates, and two or more students work 
together on a job so as to do the work most ef- 
ficiently. This type of work occupies about one 
month. 

Group E. The fourth type of work occupies 
the remainder of the first year, and consists of 
construction and assembly work. This often re- 
quires one student to make a complete case from 
beginning to end, or the problems in hand may be 
such as to require that two or more students work 
together. Sometimes there are many duplicate 
parts to be worked, and sometimes there are but 
few. The student makes a sketch of each part of 
the structure he is making and puts the working 
dimensions on it. If a student has special ability 
he may be given charge of a complex job and sub- 
divide it, thus laying out work for several students 
in different stages of skill. The assembling will 
later be done by the student who laid out the work, 
acting as a sub-foreman. During this period of 
work students get experience in wood-finishing and 
are given thoro instruction in the proper use of 
glue, and in the handling of gluing apparatus. 
They are taught the sharpening and use of the 
hand scraper; saw-filing is begun. They are also 
taught the economical use of lumber, which in- 
volves maintaining an organized system of caring 
for and utilizing scrap pieces. Scraps are classi- 
fied, sometimes by sizes, sometimes by their use. 



Factory System in Teaching Manual Arts 99 

Group F. The fifth type of work is in many 
respects a continuation of the fourth, except that 
the work is done in harder and more valuable 
woods, requiring more accurate results. Such 
problems as an oak cabinet or the interior finish 
and casework for an office belong in this stage. 
It is in this stage that most of the students hope 
for an opportunity to act for a while as a sub- 
foreman. In this stage the most reliable students, 
and those only, are allowed to run the shaper. All 
students in this stage are required to make at least 
one wood pulley, and to get some experience in 
belting work and the elements of millwrighting. 
Special jobs involving templet work are included, 
circular-saw filing and band-saw filing and braz- 
ing are taught, and before the end of the course 
some problems in estimating are given. Thruout 
the entire two-year course there are occasional 
class demonstrations, lectures, and discussions, but 
in the work at the machines the students are as- 
signed according to individual efficiency and held 
up to a commercial standard of accuracy, and ap- 
proximately up to a commercial standard of speed 
when actually working at the machines. 

The result of the three and one-half years of 
development is gratifying. While there are many 
things yet to be learned about the new problems 
involved in maintaining such a school factory on 
a sound educational and economic basis, enough 



loo The Manual Arts 

has been learned to state the following as con- 
clusions : 

( 1 ) That school work in a factory shop must 
be organized with reference to teaching as well as 
with reference to producing. Such organization 
is necessary if instruction is to be efficient, and 
economical of the learner's time. 

(2) The non-productive work has a place in 
the school factory shop — even exercise pieces pure 
and simple. 

(3) That it is practicable, under favorable 
conditions, to operate a school shop under the fac- 
tory system, but the factory system should not be 
allowed to prevent the instructor from stopping 
the work of any number of students at any time to 
give class or group instruction. The producing 
purpose of the factory shop must give way to the 
instruction purpose. 

(4) That a school factory shop may be organ- 
ized in such a way as to be a superior educational 
workshop, giving the most practical kind of in- 
struction with a high degree of thoroness by 
methods that are sound pedagogically and that 
call forth a high type of interest on the part of 
students. 

It seems to have been demonstrated that in the 
advanced stages of vocational training, after a 
good grounding in manual training work, experi- 
ence in a producing factory is highly educative, 
provided a reasonable variety of work is done. 



Factory System in Teaching Manual Arts ioi 

This has been proven In manufacturing establish- 
ments and in producing factories in schools, such 
as the one above. It seems also to have been 
demonstrated that in the earliest stages of shop 
instruction, whether that instruction be with strict 
vocational end in view or merely with a prevoca- 
tional or a manual training end as the goal, ex- 
perience in a producing factory is not as educative 
as experience under proper instruction in a school 
shop, tho certain school problems in duplicate pro- 
duction, both by hand and machine, are valuable 
in the school shop. As proof of the general state- 
ment it would seem necessary only to cite cases 
where factories have provided apprentice schools 
with special rooms for the beginners to learn the 
elements of handwork thru graded courses of les- 
sons designed to give apprentices the fundamentals 
in the best way. The factories have found this 
way to be the cheapest in the long run. 

Some figures gathered by Mark B. Hughes, of 
Detroit, for a report to the National Association 
of Corporation Schools are significant. To the 
question, "Do you believe manufacturers would be 
sufficiently benefited to warrant the expense of es- 
tablishing apprenticeship or corporation schools?" 
38 of the large corporations in the country, includ- 
ing 11 of the largest railroads and many great 
factories such as the General Electric Co., The 
Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Co., 
The Western Electric Co., Browne and Sharpe 



I02 The Manual Arts 

Manufacturing Co., and R. R. Donnelly & Sons 
Co. answered "Yes." There was not a single 
"No" vote and only one voted with a question 
mark. To the question, "Do you favor a special 
mechanical instructor or allowing the shop fore- 
man to do all the instructing?" Thirty answered 
in favor of the special instructor, 5 the shop fore- 
man, and 2 both. 

Anyone who has visited such a school as the one 
at the Lakeside Press in Chicago must be im- 
pressed with the fact that both the boy and the 
factory are profiting by separating the apprentices 
from the journeymen during the early stages of 
their apprenticeship and giving them work which 
is for the most part unproductive, except educa- 
tionally. The factory training which follows this 
preliminary school is equally essential in making 
the finished workman. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Three Typical Methods of Teaching the 
Manual Arts. 

/^ UT of the experiences of the past thirty 
^^ years of school instruction in the manual 
arts, there have come three more or less distinct 
and fundamental methods of teaching, namely, 
(1) the imitative method, (2) the discovery 
method, and (3) the inventive method. 

Briefly stated the imitative method is as follows : 
Show the pupil how to do something by doing it 
in his presence. Explain to him every step in the 
process which he does not already know. Tell 
him why each step should be taken in a certain 
way. Explain any theory involved; answer his 
questions. Then tell him to do it himself. This 
method is the method of demonstration; it is de- 
ductive. It applies equally well to both class and 
individual instruction. 

In sharp contrast with the imitative is the dis- 
covery method. In this the teacher shows the 
pupil the completed thing he is expected to make, 
but not the process of making it. He gives him 
the tools but does not show him how to use them. 
No demonstration lessons are given. Instead, 
he asks him to tell how he proposes to use the 
tools, and by what process he expects to produce 

103 



104 I'^E Manual Arts 

the object. The teacher stimulates him to think. 
Exercising his curiosity and his resourcefulness, he 
is expected to discover, or rather, to re-discover 
the correct methods of using tools. The reasoning 
is largely inductive. The instruction is almost ex- 
clusively individual. In the imitative method the 
teacher tells or shows the pupil almost everything; 
in the discovery method the teacher tells or shows 
him nothing. The teacher's constant effort in the 
discovery method is to develop rational thinking 
and this, he believes, will lead to good technic. 
He assumes that there is a discoverable, rational 
best way to do everything. 

The inventive method is different from both the 
imitative and the discovery methods in that it be- 
gins, not with something planned ready to make 
and materials all selected, but with a conscious 
need for something to serve a known purpose and 
a desire to make something to supply that need. 
The procedure by this method is, first, to know 
definitely the conditions to be met by the thing to 
be made, second, to invent or design the thing to 
fulfill the conditions, third, to select materials and 
make the thing designed. From beginning to end 
the mind is centered on the thing being made and 
whether it will serve its purpose; the process of 
producing the thing, which in both the imitative 
and the discovery methods is given greatest em- 
phasis, is here given secondary consideration. 
The instruction is largely individual, tho the 



Three Typical Methods of Teaching Manual Arts 105 

problem may be presented and discussed In class. 
It consists In supplying Ideas from which the pupil 
may choose; It stimulates original thinking by 
questioning, by criticism, and by the statement and 
exposition of laws and principles. 

I — The Imitative Method. 

Imitation is instinctive, and the teacher who 
does not utilize this natural force fails to avail 
himself of one of his strongest allies. Writers on 
psychology have made this clear. Professor Bag- 
ley says, "It seems to be a fundamental law of 
psycho-physics that an Idea or a perception always 
tends to work itself out In action; the child's con- 
crete experience of witnessing a given process is 
applied instinctively in repetition of that proc- 
ess." ^ Professor Thorndike points out that one 
of the chief dangers In teaching the doing of things 
is neglect of imitation. He says: "Young chil- 
dren rarely, if ever, learn well such things as how 
to hold a pen or to cut or to sew by being told how ; 
they have to be shown how." ^ This is In accord 
with the experience of every teacher of handwork; 
he knows that the easiest and quickest way to get 
a boy to hold and use a tool correctly Is to show 
him how to do it. Often it is not necessary to 
speak a word; to do the thing In his presence Is 

^Bagley: The Educative Process^ page 239. 
^Thorndike: The Principles of Teaching^ page 221. 



ic6 The Manual^Arts 

sufficient. Again, Professor Bagley says, "The 
process of habit forming, once started by imita- 
tion, goes on by what may be called the method of 
trial and error. * * * ^\\ school activities 
that we group under the head of manual training 
(including writing, drawing, sloyd, etc.) and 
moral training (cleanliness, industry, silence, etc.) 
are important from this point of view. Here the 
aim Is to train the muscles to certain specific adjust- 
ments, and the only way in which this can be done 
is by imitation, trial and error, and persistent prac- 
tice. The task of the teacher Is to provide a good 
model in the first place, and then to keep the child 
constantly returning to the process, frequently 
comparing the results of his work with the model, 
until proficiency results.'" If we can accept this 
as fact, then the imitative method is fundamental 
in all manual arts teaching. 

In this connection, however, it may be noted 
that imitation, being an Instinct, does not need de- 
velopment; It needs to be utilized or transformed 
or even eliminated, for only the desirable, the 
good should be imitated; the undesirable and bad 
should be eliminated, and imitation should be held 
in check In this direction. The child imitates what 
he admires, and so the teacher's opportunity lies 
in the direction of helping the child to admire 
skill and good proportions and fine finish and 
graceful curves and all the other good qualities 
that are essential to fine craftsmanship. 

^Bagley: The Educative Process, page 243. 



Three Typical Methods of Teaching Manual Arts 107 

II — The Discovery Method. 

The discovery method Is often spoken of as 
the heuristic method. This word "heuristic" comes 
from a Greek word which means to "find out." 
According to Professor De Garmo this method 
Involves (a) the discovery of the essential facts 
of a lesson and (b) the cause of a phenomenon or 
the law governing It. In this method the teacher 
surrounds the child with apparatus and atmos- 
phere favorable to certain discoveries and expects 
him to make the discovery. In its application to 
the teaching of the manual arts this method has 
found its most ardent advocate In Charles Bird, 
Supervisor of Manual Training in Leicester, Eng- 
land. With him it is largely a reaction against the 
machine-like method of extreme imitative teach- 
ing which leads to automatic action but fails to 
develop the thought power. In discussing his 
method Mr. Bird says: 

"It will hardly be denied that the normal child 
possesses In a marked degree such characteristics 
as curiosity, inqulsltlveness, a love of prying into 
things, of questioning and doubting, which are 
frequently amusing and sometimes embarrassing. 
Of his originality, adaptability, resourcefulness, 
and independence there can be no possible doubt. 
It is these characteristics, so pre-eminent in their 
importance as assets in after life, which a reason- 
able system of educational handwork can stimu- 



io8 The Manual Arts 

late and strengthen. It is greatly to be feared 
these characteristics have not been strengthened 
but rather weakened by the educational method of 
the past. 

"For this purpose the children must be allowed 
to depend upon their own thought and judgment 
in doing things. If the work given be interesting 
in character, and not too difficult for mind and 
hand to fashion, surely the children may be al- 
lowed to exercise their whole powers upon it with- 
out let or hindrance; the cause is discoverable, and 
it is the business of the teacher to see that the 
children discover it. Let the children see, think, 
and do ; later may possibly be time for explanation, 
surely not before. * * * 

"There is a discoverable reason why one 
method is better than another, if it be better; one 
tool more adapted to the purpose in hand than 
another, etc. If we wish the children to develop 
a reasonable judgment in all things, as we surely 
do, we must on no account discover for them 
what they can discover for themselves. And 
what can they not discover? 

"Uniformity of method — in other words, the 
teacher's method — is not even desirable. What 
is wanted is that each child find its own method. 
If the children reveal themselves, the teacher can 
act from sure knowledge of strengths and weak- 
nesses, of needs and necessities. Otherwise, if the 
teacher supplies the method, the children are 



Three Typical Methods of Teaching Manual Arts 109 

robbed of their natural Inquisitiveness and curi- 
osity, and may become mere storehouses of dead 
information. A little patience and a cheerful man- 
ner are all that are required to bring out the innate 
courage and capacity of the children, and cause 
them to attack their work with an intelligence, a 
vim, and a vigor delightful to observe." 

In seeking to avoid the weaknesses of the imi- 
tative method the discovery method almost 
ignores a fundamental principle of habit forma- 
tion, which is intended to avoid the formation of 
bad habits that must later be inhibited if good 
habits are to control. The study of a class at 
work under this system is sufficient to convince one 
that it emphasizes individual differences in chil- 
dren unduly. The pupils who come to the class 
prepared to think logically go ahead rapidly, while 
those who have not that preparation and need the 
more fundamental imitative basis for their work 
go very slowly. As a matter of fact, such pupils 
do imitate instead of think out the process. They 
have to ; they have no power to do otherwise. If 
they are not allowed to imitate the correct method 
of the teacher they will imitate the incorrect 
method of the nearest fellow student, or if oppor- 
tunity presents itself, of the student whom they 
know to be one of the best workmen in the class. 
The imitation will take place whether the teacher 
wants it to or not. In this respect the discovery 
theory cannot be strictly carried out in practice 



no The Manual Arts 

unless pupils are Isolated. Moreover, It has a 
tendency to discourage the pupil who has not de- 
veloped sufficient reasoning power. With all such 
students It Is uneconomical of time and effort both 
on the part of the pupil and the teacher. On the 
other hand It does have certain advantages, which 
have been pointed out by Mr. Bird. 



III. — The Inventive Method. 

From the standpoint of ultimate results the in- 
ventive method stands higher than the imitative 
because an inventor is regarded as more valuable 
to society than a mere imitator. On the other 
hand, society has need for many more routine 
skilled workers than inventors. In our present In- 
dustrial organization most men must follow in- 
structions; they must read a blueprint and produce 
work to given dimensions; they must do as they 
are told. Otherwise their product does not fit 
Into the general scheme of production. Each 
workman's piece must take just the place intended 
in the mechanism or his labor Is of no value. Co- 
operation, then, in industrial work, which is the 
fundamental method of the factory system, must 
be secured, and this means that hundreds of 
thousands of workers must carry out the plan of 
one man who is the inventor or designer. 
Thousands of parts — even millions — -must be 



Three Typical Methods of Teaching Manual Arts i i i 

made from one design. The power to read a blue- 
print is needed by a thousand workers, where the 
power to design a piece of mechanism Is needed 
by only one. The public school must not omit the 
fundamental preparation for the man who must 
take industrial orders, and obey. On the other 
hand to stop with training to obey orders is to fall 
short of training for American citizenship. While 
the worker must have the ability to follow direc- 
tions he must also, within his personal limitations, 
have the power of initiative. He should have 
power to think and the skill to do things outside 
of the limitations of a routine job — even a job re- 
quiring skill. 

The inventive method places the worker in a re- 
lation to his work that is entirely different from 
that in the Imitative method. It places him in the 
position of a master, of a person with authority 
and power to control. If a student Is working 
from a blueprint or other working drawing given 
him by the teacher, he Is expected to follow the 
drawing exactly in material and form and dimen- 
sions. On the contrary, if he has designed or In- 
vented the piece he Is making, he is the guiding 
force in the work; he can change material or form 
or dimension. His own ideas are to be carried 
out, not those of some other man, except, of 
course, as he takes advice from the teacher. In 
this method, then, the teacher is more an Inspirer, 
a counselor, than a boss who makes demands. 



112 The Manual Arts 



Summary. 



Comparing the three methods, the imitative is 
the most elementary. It prepares for industry; it 
is economical. The discovery method Is good in 
certain places, or in modified form, to follow the 
imitative. Alone, or as a beginning method, it is 
industrially weak. With the imitative as a founda- 
tion it is good; it helps to make foremen and 
superintendents. The Inventive method, also, is 
valuable after the imitative. It may produce in- 
ventors, designers, architects. It is sure to pro- 
duce initiators instead of followers and mere 
obedient servants. Its chief weakness Is that it 
may and often does ignore standards of construc- 
tion and of technic. If the schools are to produce 
American citizens with (a) skill, (b) initiative 
and (c) power to think for themselves — those 
who can follow directions efficiently or can Invent 
a better way, all three of these methods must be 
employed in teaching the manual arts In the 
schools. 



QUESTIONS 
Chapter I 

These questions, based on the text of this book, are in- 
tended for the use of students, members of reading circles and 
individual readers. Teachers, also, will find them con- 
venient. 

1. In Colonial times was the motive for teaching the three 

R's a cultural one or a vocational one.'' 

2. What led to the establishment of schools of science and 

engineering.'' 

3. What is demanding a more widespread industrial 

intelligence today? 

4. What manual arts should be taught in the schools? 

5. What is the chief function of that section of the manual 

arts which is called the graphic arts? 

6. Indicate the social significance of each of the following 

groups of constructive arts: (a) mechanic arts; (b) 
plastic arts; (c) textile arts; (d) book-making arts. 

7. Show how the teaching of the manual arts in the schools 

is in harmony with the fundamental aim of education. 

Chapter II 

8. Compare the educational duality of function in the 

natural sciences and the manual arts. 

9. To what great end in education may instruction in the 

manual arts effectively contribute? 
10. In what special way do the manual arts contribute to the 
educative process, and why is this important? 

113 



114 The Manual Arts 

11. What school of educational thought has emphasized the 

value of handwork as a method in teaching? What 
school the value of handwork as a subject? 

12. Why should present-day work in the manual arts be 

regarded as both subject and method? 

13. What should be the leading characteristics of the manual 

arts in (a) the primary grades, (b) the grammar 
grades, (c) the high school? 

Chapter III 

14. What is the difference between knowing a product of 

art and craftsmanship and knowing about it? Which 
is the proper basis for appreciation? Give illustra- 
tions. 

15. What three elements are involved in the development of 

real appreciation of products of art and craftsman- 
ship? 

16. If the development of appreciation is one of the aims of 

teaching the manual arts in public schools, what do 
the above-mentioned three elements suggest con- 
cerning manual arts instruction and methods of 
teaching? 

Chapter IV 

17. To what extent is a nation, a state, or a city justified in 

spending money for public education? 

18. What evidences are there that Americans do not yet 

properly estimate the economic value of education? 

19. Show how that increasing vocational training need not 

decrease cultural training. 

20. Give a specific example of a nation accomplishing a 

great economic purpose thru vocational training. 



Questions 115 

Chapter V 

21. What Is the chief difference between a good manual 

training course in a given craft or trade — machinist's, 
for example — and a vocational training course in the 
same craft or trade? 

22. Name three fundamental considerations in selecting 

subject-matter for courses in manual arts, whether for 
vocational or general educational ends. 

23. In what two major groups of occupations are found the 

majority of the male population of the United States 
of America? 

24. What is meant by group analysis of an occupation, 

craft or trade? 

25. What evidence may be gained from the development of 

the modern corporation school concerning the best 
way to organize instruction for purposes of vocational 
training? 

Chapter VI 

26. W^hat serious fundamental difficulties in teaching shop- 

work called forth the group method of arranging the 
subject-matter of a course of instruction? Give 
specific examples of some of these difficulties. 

27. What are the essentials of the group method? 

28. How does the group method solve many problems arising 

because of the individual differences among pupils? 

Chapter VII 

29. What is the essential difference between a successful 

productive factory school and a commercial factory? 

30. Why are some large commercial factories teaching their 

apprentices in non-productive shops? 



ii6 The Manual Arts 

31. Give briefly the essential facts concerning the productive 

factory woodworking shop at Bradley Institute: (i) 
equipment, (2) cost system, (3) results in manufac- 
tured products, (4) organization of subject-matter, 
(5) conclusions. 

Chapter VIII 

32. What three fundamental methods of teaching the manual 

arts have developed during the past thirty years? 
Describe each. 

23. Why is the use of the imitative method alone unde- 
sirable? Why the discovery alone? Why the in- 
ventive alone? 

34. Why should all three methods be employed in teaching 
the manual arts in public schools? 

2S' Discuss each of these three methods briefly with refer- 
ence to (a) teaching technic, (b) habit formation, (c) 
developing power to think, (d) individual differences 
in pupils, (e) power of the pupil to do things that he 
has not been directly taught to do, (f) economy in 
learning. 



BOOKS FOR THE TEACHER 
OF THE MANUAL ARTS 



MANUAL ARTS FOR VOCATIONAL ENDS. 

By Fred D. Crawshaw. A strong and convincing plea for the develop- 
ment of the present school machinery to serve the ends of vocational education. 
It treats the problem in a practical way, giving concrete working helps, and is a 
source of inspiration to manual arts teachers and others interested in the prob- 
lem 85 cents 

HANDWORK INSTRUCTION FOR BOYS. 

By Dr, Alwin Pabst. A philosophical and historical review of manual 
training for boys and a discussion of the systems in vogue in the several Euro- 
pean countries and in America; by the director of the normal school for teachers 
of manual training at Leipsic $1.00 

DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION IN WOOD. 

By William Noyes. A book full of charm and distinction. It illustrates 
a series of projects and gives suggestions for other similar projects, together 
with information regarding tools and processes for making. A pleasing volume, 
abundantly and beautifully illustrated $1.60 

HANDWORK IN WOOD. 

By William Noyes. A comprehensive and scholarly treatise, covering 
logging, saw-milling, seasoning and measuring, hand-tools, wood fastenings, 
equipment and care of the shop, the common joints, types of wood structures, 
principles of joinery, and wood finishing. 304 illustrations — excellent pen draw- 
ings and many photographs. The best reference book available for teachers 
of woodworking $2.00 

WOOD AND FOREST. 

By William Noyes. A reference book for teachers of woodworking. 
Treats of wood, distribution of American forests, life of the forest, enemies of 
the forest, destruction, conservation and uses of the forest, with a key to the 
common woods, by Filibert Roth. Describes 57 principal species of wood with 
maps of the habitat, leaf drawings, lifesize photographs and microphoto- 
graphs of sections. Profusely illustrated $3.00 

WOODWORK FOR SECONDARY SCHOOLS. 

By Ira S. Griffith. A book providing in text form the essentials of 
woodwork as taught in the best secondary schools. Among the distinctly new 
features in this text are chapters on the use of wood-working machines, carving 
a nd inlaying, and furniture construction. It also contains chapters on woods, 
tools and processes, joinery, turning, wood finishing and pattern-making. . $1.75 

HANDCRAFT IN WOOD AND METAL. 

By J. Hooper and A. J. Shirley. A valuable reference book on craft- 
work in wood and metal. It treats of historic craftwork, materials used in 
handcrafts, designing, decorative processes, the historic development of tools, 
the theory of the cutting action of tools, and the equipment of the school work- 
shop $3.00 

CORRELATED COURSES IN WOODWORK AND MECHANICAL 
DRAWING. 

By Ira S. Griffith. Contains reliable information concerning organiza- 
tion of courses, subject-matter and methods of teaching. It covers classifica- 
tion and arrangement of tool operations, stock bills, cost of material, records, 
shop conduct, the lesson, maintenance, equipment and lesson outlines for 
grammar and high schools. The most complete and thoro treatment of the 
subject of teaching woodworking ever published $2.00 



CARPENTRY. 

By Ira S. Griffith. A well illustrated book for use by students, teachers 
and apprentices to the trade; presenting the principles of house construction 
in a clear and fundamental way. It treats of the "everyday" practical prob- 
lems of the carpenter and house builder from the "laying of foundations" to 
the completion of the "interior finish." It is well illustrated by photographs 
taken "on the job" $1.00 

FURNITURE DESIGN FOR SCHOOLS AND SHOPS. 

By Fred D. Crawshaw. A manual on furniture design containing a 
collection of plates showing perspective drawings of typical designs, representing 
particular types of furniture. Each perspective is accompanied by suggestions 
for rearrangements and the modeling of parts. The text discusses and illus- 
trates principles of design as applied to furniture. Should be in the hands of 
every teacher of cabinet making and designing $1.25 

SHOP PROBLEMS (On Tracing Paper). 

By Albert F. Siepert. A collection of working drawings of a large 
variety of projects printed on tracing paper and ready for blue printing. The 
projects have all been worked out in manual arts classes and have proved their 
value from the standpoint of design, construction, use, human interest, etc. 
They are of convenient size, 6x9-inch, and are enclosed in a portfolio. To the 
teacher in search of additional projects to supplement and enrich his course, 
these tracings are worth far more than the price asked. In series numbered 1, 
2, 3 and 4. Per series 35 cents 

PAPER AND CARDBOARD CONSTRUCTION. 

By G. F. Buxton and F. L. Curran. A handbook for teachers cover- 
ing book problems, box problems, card problems and envelope problems for 
the first four grades. It outlines courses, gives detailed working directions and 
suggestions concerning equipment, supplies and methods of teaching. Illus- 
trated with photographs and complete working drawings of each problem. A 
book of special value $1.50 

LEATHER WORK. 

By Adelaide Mickel. A manual on art leather work for students, teachers 
and craft workers. It gives detailed descriptions of the various processes of 
working, treating of fiat modeling, embossing or repousse, carved leather and 
cut work. It is well illustrated with photographs of finished work and working 
drawings of twenty useful and beautiful articles suitable for school and home 
work 75 cents 

ART METALWORK. 

By Arthur F. Payne. A textbook written by an expert craftsman and 
experienced teacher. It treats of the various materials and their production, 
ores, alloys, commercial forms, etc; of tools and equipments suitable for the 
work, the inexpensive equipment of the practical craftsman, and of the correla- 
tion of art metalwork with design and other school subjects. It is abundantly 
and beautifully illustrated. The standard book on the subject $2.00 

ART IN DRESS, WITH NOTES ON HOME DECORATION. 

By Lydia Bolmar and Kathleen McNutt. A textbook for high and 
normal school students of domestic art. It is a clear and direct treatment of 
the fundamental principles of art applied to dress, millinery and home decora- 
tion. A valuable aid in establishing guiding principles in dress 60 cents 

HANDICRAFT FOR GIRLS. 

By Idabelle McGlauflin. A handbook for teachers, detailing a five- 
years' course in sewing for girls in the public schools. Chapters on stitches, 
fibers and fabrics, cloth and cardboard construction, basketry, dress in its rela- 
tion to art, and home furnishing $1.00 

PUBLISHED BY 

THE MANUAL ARTS PRESS, PEORIA, ILLINOIS 




013 823 620 1 



